Toxic sexism - poor Eric

Eric Butts is apparently a fan of Star Wars. So much a fan that he cried at some aspect of a recently released film trailer. And, inevitably, some bullies piled on. One comment that achieved particular fame called him undateable, and he was compared to the right-wing nutters who call themselves ‘incels’.

This reveals to us a whole world of judgement of men that it’s easy to overlook. Men tend to have deep hobbies; more than women, they dive into a subject and devote themselves to it. It’s an autistic trait but also a masculine one. And society mocks people who are odd, or take seriously something that the rest of us don’t care about.

There are nerds who have endured mockery, and many people who have skimped on or hidden life-fulfilling interests in order to avoid mockery. It’s not entirely a male thing, but it is more men than women, just as most traditionally feminist issues affect more women than men.

Alongside this distaste for loving anything too much is a default hierarchy of value in which art focussed on drama and relationships is regarded as more mature, and art focussed on stories in which things happen (‘action’) is derided. Men are naturally drawn to the physical; they have a greater tendency to have good spatial intelligence and less interest in, and aptitude for, emotional intelligence. What naturally interests them is the ‘lesser’ art.

The discussion of societal approaches to drama and relationships would also be incomplete without noting that the default way of living is to pursue an exclusive relationship and devote oneself to a spouse until children arrive, at which point they cease to become the most important goal in life and become the most important part of life. This approach to life probably appeals to a great many people naturally, but we’re indoctrinated into it so that we scorn and reject anyone who wants something else. And it’s very much men who are more inclined to explore other things in life, whether it’s exploring the world and adventuring, obsessing about fantasy stories or fooling around in relationships without ‘getting serious’.

These are valid interests, but there’s a constant undercurrent of negative judgement. It starts with the descriptions we use: a ‘serious relationship’ is one that fits our mould for marriage and child-rearing. If it’s merely life-affirming and wonderful but unlikely to last it’s regarded as trivial, even though nothing lasts forever. Then there’s the ongoing chuntering about when someone will ‘grow up’. Boys and men are regarded as immature until they learn to pursue the things that women are more drawn to: marriage and children.

I’ve been in relationships where we spent most of our time discussing (arguing) the relationship and almost no time actually enjoying it. Is it immature to fool around with friends and enjoy life a bit, but mature to take relationships so seriously, and analyse them so carefully, that there’s no time left for doing things?

You might not regard these things as important. It’s hard to understand how the constant undermining of your own desires, mockery or displeasure can build up. How over time someone can subconsciously and consciously dissociate from what he really wants and learn to behave in a scripted way imposed on him. But that’s exactly the argument we make about feminist issues: small things add up to a culture that is oppressive.

You might regard these things as aspects of patriarchy, and not news to feminism. Feminists abhor the pressure on women to have babies too. But these issues are not limited to women, and it’s hard to relate them to the root of the word ‘patriarchy’, which means rule by men. Men might have more power, but a culture that punishes male traits hasn’t arisen specifically because of universal male power. It’s just an oppressive culture that also happens to give too much of the power to some men. More and more I think that the sex-related terms of feminism and patriarchy are outdated and implicitly exclude hugely important issues. In the end, though, this is arguing over words and not ideas. So let’s move on.

There is a class of advertisement that mocks men. Portrayed as incompetent, these men can’t even take pride in having some value from their appearance. Women might often be mere ornaments, but some advertisements have a man whose role is to be an awful human being, creating or failing to solve problems that the woman, with the product, finds effortless to manage. Women complain that this is insulting to women, because they are told to care for men… and yet reject any suggestion that chivalry and protecting women might be onerous to men.

Returning to dedication to a subject, our culture of long working hours seems, in my limited experience, to be more strictly enforced on men. Women might feel constrained by society’s expectations that they devote themselves to family, but men are constrained by society’s expectation that they show their devotion by working their lives away. Household commitments are an unacceptable excuse; men must waste their lives on labour that isn’t even for them. Neither men nor women are allowed interests or hobbies into adulthood; these are regarded as weird quirks that at best are tolerable and at worst interfere with the ‘mature’ business of meeting cultural expectations of raising children.

To call society’s focus on having more children somehow more patriarchal than matriarchal is wrong. It is patriarchal only in the sense that men happen to have power in our society and are therefore by default more responsible for society’s culture. But it doesn’t benefit men, and it’s promoted at least as much by broody women as reactionary men. There are many men who find the love of their life, have children, and then feel left out because their lover no longer devotes much time to them, but instead to their children. Angry feminists dismiss this as yet another example of needy men. But all these insulting attitudes to men start to sound very biased; more like a relationship drama in which someone who is already upset is looking for ways to criticise. If you buy into an ideal you’re not particularly disposed towards on the basis that, yes, two people in a mutually-supportive relationship can share and enjoy so much more life than an individual can, it can be profoundly depressing to find that you were sold a lie.

Many women use relationships as a tool to achieve the true goal: a ‘happy, normal’ family of husband and children, with children the real purpose and joy. The man is merely incidental. The relationship is no longer one of mutual support, but one in which he supports more and more, and gets less and less back. Focussing on whiny men who want something back ignores entirely the supposed mutuality of the initial relationship.

There are many men who feel that their relationships have died. Mid-life crises aren’t just about lost youth, but the dawning realization that life isn’t what it should be for a multitude of other reasons. Is it mature to give up on your dreams and support others just because other people tell you that supporting others should be your dream?

We could have a cultural message that having a child is a massive commitment, a life-distorting decision that will cost you many of your current friendships and relationships as well as your health and money. Instead it’s a default that people fall into. That suits people who were always more likely to be focussed on having children, but is a disaster for everyone who might have wanted other excitements in life.

When we judge men’s desirability we often include things such as status and wealth that aren’t part of the person. Women complain about men who look only at their beauty and not their personality… and yet there are also women who think of men as accessories; you pick a man for his money and reflected status, have his babies and care about your children rather than your husband. That’s not objectification, but it also ignores all aspects of who the man actually is. His personality is mostly irrelevant.

                Is it awful that men are pressured to make money as a substitute for being decent people? Is it worse than women regarding beauty as an acceptable substitute for virtue (and I mean real virtue, not sexual repression)? That depends on your view of capitalism, greed and their effects on society and the environment. But I think the effect on men is significant, and less widely considered. Is it patriarchy that tells women to value wealth and then makes men feel inadequate because they’re never wealthy enough? No.

                I think it might be biologically hard-wired for women to find wealth and power attractive. That doesn’t make it right. Men are biologically hard-wired to find women’s bodies attractive, and to feel more sexual urges than women. We don’t use that as an excuse to justify behaviours that hurt other people or make society worse: we still condemn objectification. Women even sneer at pathetic men constantly begging for sex: feminists worry about the men who intimidate women with the possibility that they will indulge their need without consent. But no-one considers the burden of constantly living with an unmet need. It’s not right to use other people, but it’s still awful to need something you can’t attain.

                The default position is that a mature man is one who ignores that need, is lucky enough not to have a powerful version of it, or has resigned himself to an unfulfilled life. Women expect fidelity not just emotionally, but physically: many find the idea of their partner using pornography revolting. Human biology is hugely variable, but the culturally acceptable version of a sex drive is not to have one. Because men tend to have more than women, it’s the opposite of a feminist issue. This might have arisen from patriarchal religions, but it’s now a problem for men, promoted and maintained by women.

That's been enough writing. We've only briefly touched on some of these issues: long enough to trigger more thoughts, I hope. But I hope the main point is clear: our cultural problems are broader than one oppressed group. We have an oppressive, imperfect society not because a broad swathe of people are perfectly privileged, but because everyone is oppressed in different ways. Sexism is just one way, and it cuts against both sexes. This is because humans tend to be thoughtless and unpleasant, especially to those who are different in any way. Tolerance isn't just a high concept to be applied to the famous things, like religion or sex. It's needed in every little moment of life, because little moments add up to whole lives.