You may dismiss this book because it is so American, but American trends have a habit of moving over here, so watch out. This is the anti-feminist backlash in full flood. It purports to be a sober examination of the facts about discrimination against men, and the way men suffer in society, and as such is supported by a panoply of notes and references - over 50 pages of them. But really it is a journalistic book, rather than an academic one. Farrell puts the male case, taking over the title of 'the men's movement' for his own position, which is a bit cheeky, and completely ignores the female case, which makes the reader who knows the other side keep on saying 'yes, but'. (Those who want to read this other side only need to look at the recent book by Judith Lorber, The Paradoxes of Gender). This rising tide of 'yes, buts' as the book goes on makes for hard reading by anyone who knows the rest.
Farrell admits that the book is one-sided, and leaves out a great deal. He says:
Ideally there should not be a men's movement but a gender transition movement; only the power of the women's movement necessitates the temporary corrective of a men's movement. (p.355)
Of course, what 'temporary' means here is - for as long as it takes to ditch feminism. The curious thing is that Farrell used to be a feminist, and very interested in male-female relationships - he was continually referring to what his partner Ursie said or did. But in this book there is no mention of his own life - he is somehow absent from his own book. And feminism has become the enemy;
As thousands of women's jobs became dependent on a feminist perspective, feminism bureaucratised. Like communism, feminism went from being revolutionary to dictating politically correct ideology. And, like communism, the political correctness was supported most strongly in the universities. (p.345)
These 'government' commissions are not really government commissions - they are feminist commissions... Feminism has become gender politics' one-party system. (pp. 246-7)
The Government as Substitute Husband did for women what labour unions still have not accomplished for men. And men pay dues for labour unions; the taxpayer pays the dues for feminism. Feminism and government soon became taxpayer-supported women's unions. (p.345)
The curious thing about this is that men's unions have been in existence for over a hundred years, and still a great deal remains to be achieved, particularly in the field of health and safety. And this tells us that much of this book is actually about class rather than gender. It is not women who have opposed the gains of the labour unions, it is other men, the owners and employers. So many of Farrell's terrible examples of the way in which men are treated as disposable come from class oppression, not from anything to do with gender. It is not that men are powerless, it is that the most powerful men oppress all the others.
And this brings us to one of Farrell's most tricky moves. He redefines power. To political people generally, power is something social. It is on the grand scale. It is about laws and customs and questions like 'Who rules whom?' But not for Farrell:
In this book, I define power as having control over one's own life. (p.48)
This immediately transforms power from the large stage to the small one. Instead of being something sociological, it becomes something psychological. You have it if you feel you have it. And much of the book is devoted to showing that many men don't feel as if they have control over their own lives. And this is particularly true when men feel that women have taken over. The only answer then is to organise in a militant way to take power back again from women. And this is just what Farrell proposes:
When a large number of people feel emotionally rejected and economically hurt at the same moment in history, a revolution is in the making... Like women, men experience emotional rejection if they divorce; but unlike women, men are much more likely to be involuntarily deprived of their children, thus experiencing a double dose of emotional rejection. Many men feel unloved and unneeded by anyone after divorce, which is why men commit suicide more than women after they divorce. When, on top of this, men are told to pay money for what they're deprived of (children and wife), they simultaneously experience economic hurt... Which is why the next stage of the men's movement will be both political and activist. (p.368)
Here we are at the heartland of the Men's Rights movement, and it has to be said that Farrell is closer to this tendency than to any other grouping within the broad confines of the men's movement. He is not with the profeminist men; he is not with the spiritual men; he is with those men who originally organised to oppose the divorce laws and the way in which courts so often awarded custody to the mother. In this country there is an organisation called Families Need Fathers: the other day I saw an interesting misprint, where it was called Fathers Need Families - and this seems actually truer as to where the pressure comes from on this.
Like so many of the reactionary men he is speaking for, he redefines sexism to suit himself. Originally sexism meant the oppression of women by men. The right-wing amendment to this is to redefine it as discrimination on the basis of gender. Sounds good, doesn't it, very sociological. But then it gives them the opening to say things like:
When a man is a candidate and a woman a spouse, the man gets investigated; when the reverse is true, the man still gets investigated. That's sexism against men. (p.252)
It is not sexism, because it is not the oppression of women by men. It is something else. It may be unfair, it may be objectionable, it may be that it should be questioned or opposed. But it is not sexism. And I counted at least thirteen of these twists of the term sexism in these pages.
Is there, then, nothing good to be said about this book? Shall we consign it to the flames? My own opinion is that there are some good things in this book, plus a genuine caring for men and their problems which I find quite touching. For example, I agree with this:
Male Pattern Flaw Finding
If you've ever had an adolescent son (or been one), you know a boy's 'best friend' is the one with whom he trades 'wit-covered put-downs'. Why is 'the put-down trade' the commerce of male adolescence? And why is this 'male pattern flaw finding' so damaging? The put-down trade is our adolescent son's rehearsal for taking criticism as an adult. Taking criticism is a prerequisite for success. The upside is that it prepares men to handle criticism at work and in their personal relationships without taking it personally. The downside is the 'hidden tax'.
The hidden tax? The New England Journal of Medicine has recently reported that speaking about one's faults creates abnormalities in the pulsations of our heart. Tiny abnormalities? No. Abnormalities as great as those produced by riding a stationary bicycle to the point of either exhaustion or chest pain. (Alan Rozanski, MD, 'Mental stress and the induction of silent ischaemia in patients with coronary heart disease' New England Journal of Medicine, vol.318, no.16. April 21 1988, pp. 1005-12). Perhaps the criticism, then, contributes to men being four times more likely than women to suffer heart disease before age fifty (USDH&HS/NCHS, Centers for Disease Control, Vital Statistics of The United States (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1990), part A, section 1 - 'General Mortality; p.44, tables 1-10, 'Death rates for 72 selected causes, by 10-year age groups, race, and sex: United States, 1987-Con.') In essence, our sons might be practising heart-disease training.
While men are bonding by giving each other criticism, women are bonding by giving each other support. The price men pay is the feeling of isolation and loneliness. Only now are we discovering that loneliness is a strong predictor of heart disease (Robert Suro, 'Hearts and minds; The New York Times, December 29, 1991, section 6, p.18, col.1. See also Dr Dean Ornish, MD, Dr Dean Ornish's program for preventing heart disease (New York, Random House, 1990)). Heart disease, then, is the hidden tax of the put-down trade. Male pattern flaw finding becomes male pattern heart attacks. (p.186)
This seems to me like a point well made, and I wish more of the book was like this, stressing what men do to themselves and each other rather than all the cheap gibes and sideswipes at women and feminism.
John Rowan
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
