Masculism or masculinism may variously refer to ideologies and socio-political movements that seek to eliminate sexism against men, equalize their rights with women, and increase adherence to or promotion of attributes regarded as typical of men and boys. The terms may also refer to the men's rights movement or men's movement, as well as a type of antifeminism.

Terminology

Early history

According to the historian Judith Allen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman invented the term ''masculism'' in 1914, when she gave a public lecture series in New York entitled "Studies in Masculism". Apparently the printer did not like the term and tried to change it. Allen writes that Gilman used ''masculism'' to refer to the opposition of misogynist men to women's rights and, more broadly, to describe "men's collective political and cultural actions on behalf of their own sex", or what Allen calls the "sexual politics of androcentric cultural discourses". Gilman referred to men and women who opposed

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

as masculists—women who collaborated with these men were "Women Who Won't Move Forward"—and described

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

as "masculism at its worst". In response to the lecture, W. H. Sampson wrote in a letter to the ''New York Times'' that women must share the blame for war: "It is perfectly useless to pretend that men have fought, struggled and labored for themselves, while women have stayed at home, wishing they wouldn't, praying before the shrines for peace, and using every atom of their influence to bring about a holy calm."

Definition and scope

The ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...

'' (2000) defines ''masculinism'', and

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are al ...

ously ''masculism'', as: "Advocacy of the rights of men; adherence to or promotion of opinions, values, etc., regarded as typical of men; (more generally) anti-feminism,

machismo Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1930s and 1940s best defined as hav ...

." According to Susan Whitlow in ''The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory'' (2011), the terms are "used interchangeably across disciplines". Sociologist Robert Menzies wrote in 2007 that both terms are common in men's rights and anti-feminist literature: "The intrepid virtual adventurer who boldly goes into these unabashedly mascul(in)ist spaces is quickly rewarded with a torrent of diatribes, invectives, atrocity tales, claims to entitlement, calls to arms, and prescriptions for change in the service of men, children, families, God, the past, the future, the nation, the planet, and all other things non-feminist." The gender-studies scholar Julia Wood describes ''masculinism'' as an ideology asserting that women and men should have different roles and rights owing to fundamental differences between them, and that men suffer from discrimination and "need to reclaim their rightful status as men". Sociologists Arthur Brittan and Satoshi Ikeda describe masculinism as an ideology justifying male domination in society. Masculinism, according to Brittan, maintains that there is "a fundamental difference" between men and women and rejects feminist arguments that male–female relationships are political constructs. According to Ferrel Christensen, a Canadian philosopher and president of the former Alberta-based Movement for the Establishment of Real Gender Equality, "Defining 'masculism' is made difficult by the fact that the term has been used by very few people, and by hardly any philosophers." He differentiates between "progressive masculists", who welcome many of the societal changes promoted by feminists, while believing that some measures to reduce sexism against women have increased it against men, and an "extremist version" of masculism that promotes male supremacy. He argued that if masculism and feminism refer to the belief that men/women are systematically discriminated against, and that this discrimination should be eliminated, there is not necessarily a conflict between feminism and masculism, and some assert that they are both. However, many believe that one sex is more discriminated against, and thus use one label and reject the other. The political scientist Georgia Duerst-Lahti distinguishes between ''masculism'', which expresses the

ethos Ethos ( or ) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution, and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to ...

of the early gender-egalitarian men's movement, and ''masculinism'', which refers to the ideology of

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...

. Sociologists Melissa Blais and Francis Dupuis-Déri describe masculism as a form of antifeminism; they equate ''masculist'' and ''masculinist'', attributing the former to author

Warren Farrell Warren Thomas Farrell (born June 26, 1943) is an American political scientist, activist, and author of seven books on men's and women's issues. He is a leading figure of the Men's Rights Movement. Farrell initially came to prominence in the 1 ...

. The most common term, they argue, is the "men's movement"; they write that there is a growing consensus in the French-language media that the movement should be referred to as ''masculiniste''. According to Whitlow, masculinist theory such as Farrell's and that of gender-studies scholar R.W. Connell developed alongside

third-wave feminism Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, Gen X and early Gen Y generations third-w ...

and queer theory, and was influenced by those theories' questioning of traditional

gender role A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cen ...

s and the meaning of terms such as ''man'' and ''woman''. According to Bethany M. Coston and Michael Kimmel, members of the

mythopoetic men's movement The mythopoetic men's movement was a body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by various organizations and authors in the United States from the early 1980s through the 1990s. The term ''mythopoetic ...

identify as masculinist. Nicholas Davidson, in ''The Failure of Feminism'' (1988), calls ''masculism'' "virism": "Where the feminist perspective is that social ills are caused by the dominance of masculine values, the virist perspective is that they are caused by a decline of those values. ..." Christensen calls virism "an extreme brand of masculism and masculinism".

Areas of interest

Education and employment

Many masculists oppose co-educational schooling, believing that single-sex schools better promote the well-being of boys. Data from the U.S. in 1994 reported that men suffer 94% of workplace fatalities. Farrell has argued that men do a disproportionate share of dirty, physically demanding, and hazardous jobs.

Violence and suicide

Masculists cite higher rates of suicide in men than women. Farrell expresses concern about violence against men being depicted as humorous, in the media and elsewhere. They also express concern about violence against men being ignored or minimized in comparison to violence against women, asserting gender symmetry in

domestic violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for '' intimate partn ...

. Another of Farrell's concerns is that traditional assumptions of female innocence or sympathy for women, termed benevolent sexism, do lead to unequal penalties for women and men who commit similar crimes, to lack of sympathy for male victims in

cases when the perpetrator is female, and to dismissal of female-on-male

sexual assault Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...

and

sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fr ...

cases.

Gender studies

A masculist approach to

gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field n ...

, which have frequently focused on woman-based or feminist approaches, examines oppression within a masculinist, patriarchal society from a male standpoint. According to Oxford Reference, "Masculinists reject the idea of universal patriarchy, arguing that before feminism most men were as disempowered as most women."

South African masculinist evangelical movements

In the wake of the abolition of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, South Africa saw a resurgence of masculinist Christian evangelical groups, led by the Mighty Men Conference (MMC) and the complementary Worthy Women Conference (WWC). The latter saw the development of what theologian Sarojini Nadar and psychologist Cheryl Potgeier call ''formenism'': "For''men''ism, like masculinism, subscribes to a belief in the inherent superiority of men over women (in other words, only men can be leaders), but unlike masculinism, it is not an ideology developed and sustained by men, but one constructed, endorsed and sustained by ''women''" mphasis in original The Mighty Men movement harkens back to the Victorian idea of Muscular Christianity. Feminist scholars argue that the movement's lack of attention to women's rights and the struggle for racial equality makes it a threat to women and to the stability of the country. Scholar Miranda Pillay argues that the Mighty Men movement's appeal lies in its resistance to gender equality as incompatible with Christian values, and in raising patriarchy to a "hyper-normative status", beyond challenge by other claims to power. The Worthy Women Conference is an auxiliary to the MMC in advocating a belief in the inherent superiority of men over women. Its leader, Gretha Wiid, blames South Africa's disorder on the liberation of women, and aims to restore the nation through its families, making women again subservient to men. Her success is attributed to her balancing claims that God created the gender hierarchy, but that women are no less valuable than men, and that restoration of traditional gender roles relieves existential anxiety in post-apartheid South Africa.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

* {{Political ideologies Masculinity Men's movement 1980s neologisms Men's rights Opposition to feminism Political ideologies