Have we men failed to change in a constantly shifting world, or are we making progress in our personal and political lives towards a society free from gender inequalities? What inhibits or promotes such change? These are daunting questions to examine. I want first to consider what we understand by the totality of change, including our personal change; then, I want to consider some ways in which men/we are not changing or ways in which our power appears to becoming intensified; thirdly, I want to look at some ways we are changing, and what it is that may give us hope and inspiration for further change.
It is important to try and look at the totality of men's change - both personal and social/political, both inner and outer; both material and ideological - as well as being critical of those divisions being too hard and fast, in the first place.
Change can mean different things. It can refer to the conditions that we live in - conditions of home, of employment, of unemployment. It can refer to how we behave - what we do or do not do. It can refer to how we feel - the thoughts, feelings, values, aspirations, ideas we have. It can refer to our experience. In saying this, these various facets of change aren't necessarily in smooth harmony at a particular time. There may be mismatches between what we feel and what we express emotionally, or between intentions and actions. Change can also refer to different types of change for different types of men. It is also useful to remember that of itself change just means something being different, which might refer to our attempts to increase or decrease our power. For example, men may respond to feminism by conscious actions that are anti-feminist, pro-male, or pro-feminist [1]. In the United States these last two positions are expressed in the pro-male Coalition of Free Men, as against the pro-feminist National Organisation for Changing Men. I presume we're most interested here in change that is anti-sexist, anti-patriarchal, pro-feminist and gay-affirmative.
Another aspect of change, and a very obvious one, that I increasingly see as important, is the fact that change takes place over time, that is, in different time spans. Change of men can be seen as happening over decades and centuries, or over recent years, even recent days. It is necessary to recognise that men's change against sexism and for feminism is not new. Before the First World War there were the Men's Federation for Women's Suffrage in Britain, and the Men's League for Women's Suffrage in the United States, who campaigned for the vote for women, and marched and demonstrated accordingly [2]. Inevitably, this brought hostile reactions from some men - just like today. So in that way what we are trying to do follows in a long line of struggles of men. This means we can ask ourselves, have we changed, say, during this century, or during the last year, or are we going to change this weekend?
| are we going to change this weekend? |
This brings me onto another feature of the totality of men's change - that is, the idea of there being different levels of change - from the person to the world. So let's start with how we live, with whom we live, and how that living is organised, particularly in terms of who does what in the home, childcare, care for the ill and the old, housework and other domestic tasks. For example, there has been quite a lot of suggestion in recent years that men are getting more involved in childcare, and that different, more involved, kinds of fathers are now more common. It appears that there have been some positive changes in this area, but these are generally really rather slight - say, of the order of 5-10 percent increases in men's childcare in say 20 years. However, even these slight increases have to be seen in the context of decreases in men's paid working hours, changes in domestic technology, and women's increased participation in the employed workforce [3]. Also, men's extra involvement in the home may tend to focus on particular times of crisis, such as, around childbirth [4], or be more pronounced in families with chronic childcare difficulties, as with children with disabilities [5]. Any more increases in men's involvement with children have to be set against the problems of child abuse and child sexual abuse, and the possibility that men's increased access to children is one reason for apparently increasing incidence by men. These issues have been further complicated recently by government and other attempts to decrease divorce and increase paternal contact and 'responsibility', and by a reinforcement of fatherhood in advertising and other imagery.
Next, we can look at what is happening locally, and the impact of living in different towns, localities, provinces. I live in Bradford and have a workbase this year (1988-89) in Manchester. On the 25th October 1988, in Bradford, the Conservative controlled local council forced through, in a heavily masculist style, a range of local measures that were not only concerned with cuts and privatisation, but were also anti-women. For example, the selling off of old people's homes, occupied mainly by women, and the abolition of sex equality officers and library/educational resource units [6]. In Manchester on the same evening there was a women's march, organised by college, polytechnic and university student unions and women's organisations, to reclaim the streets after a series of local killings, rapes and assaults. These are just two examples of particular men's actions against women in different places. They are also examples of how different parts of England may at particular times provide different conditions for our actions and possibilities for change. Localities are different, and in particular are subject to the impact of different, large local organisations, local councils, companies and so on.
Then, there are changes at the level of the nation and the society, including patterns of economic class, employment, and unemployment, and the form of the state as the main vehicle of war, and their impact upon men. Although I don't want to diminish the importance of economic change, it has to be recognised that 'slumps' (and 'booms') are routine to capitalism, with consequent and regular effects on the so-called breadwinner role of men. Thus if there is a 'crisis of masculinity' now through unemployment, then there should have been many before. Also unemployment (and retirement) of men has been shown, by a number of research studies, to frequently involve a reassertion of men's power, lost in the economic sphere, in other spheres [7], for example, violence in the home. Furthermore, changes around unemployment do not happen in isolation. They are occurring now at the same time as the government is placing more emphasis on traditional 'sex roles', the family, and the individual.
| perhaps British men are still recovering from the shock |
Beyond this, there is the totality of change in men internationally, in the world, in world patriarchy. The permanence of war; the slight decrease in torture and political imprisonment, despite its widespread and continuous use; famine; ecological disaster now and in the future; the spread of multinationals; the continuation of international relations as relations between men (détente, glasnost and the Eastern European revolutions don't necessarily mean change in that); the continuation of the nuclear world. Andrew Tolson [8] amongst others has noted the effects upon men of losing wars and empires - perhaps British men are still recovering from the shock. While thinking of change at this level is particularly daunting, I don't raise this now to divert attention from what we are doing here in Nottingham [10]. On the contrary, I raise it because it is too important to me and to us not to do so. These different types of change are not separate from each other. There are also of course many changes that cut across personal, local, national and international arenas. Just consider two examples of this - first, images, pictures of men may now be sent around the world at lightning speed; they can appear in our 'local rag' or in international communications. An interesting case here is the increasing use of violence by men and of men in popular culture, videos and pornography. Another example is the increasing sexualisation of men, particularly in adverts, pop music, films and so on. Second, and linked to this, there's the case of sport. It's now quite difficult to separate out the importance of sport for men as something that is done or played and as something that takes up so much time and space in the media. Part of the meaning of playing football for a local club or on the back alley is tied to the World Cup and all that.
Here is a quick resume:
Perhaps it isn't quite as formidable a list as that above, but it is still valuable to recognise it:
Pressures for men to change clearly come from many places and many people - from women, from young people; from gay men upon heterosexual men; from black upon white; and so on. Change comes from economic movements, from the take over of people's personal lives, from the shifts to the consumption and the service sector. Change comes from each other, ourselves.
I think it's particularly crucial to develop links with men who are not usually part of anti-sexism - men doing dangerous work, fighting for more safety at work, men recovering from war, ex-military peace campaigners, and so on. We have so much to gain from change against sexism and patriarchy - not just to ease our consciences, but to find a more loving and supportive life with other men, to avoid the violence of other men, and even contribute to the survival of the planet and us all [9].
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
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