Masculism#Criticisms and responses

According to the historian Judith Allen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman invented the term masculism in 1914,{{cite book |last=Allen |first=Judith A. |title=The Feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Sexualities, Histories, Progressivism |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |year=2009 |page=353}} when she gave a public lecture series in New York entitled "Studies in Masculism". 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",{{sfn|Allen|2009|p=152}} or what Allen calls the "sexual politics of androcentric cultural discourses".{{sfn|Allen|2009|p=353}} Gilman referred to men and women who opposed women's suffrage as masculists—women who collaborated with these men were "Women Who Won't Move Forward"{{sfn|Allen|2009|pp=136–137}}—and described World War I as "masculism at its worst".{{sfn|Allen|2009|p=127}}

A Dictionary of Media and Communication (2011) defines masculinism (or masculism) as "[a] male counterpart to feminism. [...] Like feminism, masculism reflects a number of positions, from the desire for equal rights for men (for example, in cases of child access after divorce), to more militant calls for the total abolition of women's rights."{{r|Chandler 2011}} According to Susan Whitlow in The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory (2011), the terms are "used interchangeably across disciplines".{{cite book |last=Whitlow |first=Susan |chapter=Gender and Cultural Studies |title=The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, Volume 3 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |location=Malden, Mass. |date=2011 |doi=10.1002/9781444337839.wbelctv3g003 |isbn=978-1-40-518312-3 |pages=1083–91}} 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."{{cite book |last1=Menzies |first1=Robert |editor1-last=Chunn |editor1-first=Dorothy E. |editor2-last=Boyd |editor2-first=Susan |editor3-last=Lessard |editor3-first=Hester |title=Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law, and Social Change |date=2007 |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |location=Vancouver |at=p. 65; note 2, p. 91 |chapter=Virtual Backlash: Representations of Men's 'Rights' and Feminist 'Wrongs' in Cyberspace |isbn=978-0-7748-4036-1}}

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".{{cite book |last1=Wood |first1=Julia T. |title=Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, & Culture |date=2014 |publisher=Cengage Learning |location=Stamford, Conn. |isbn=978-1-28-507593-8 |page=89}} Sociologists Arthur Brittan and Satoshi Ikeda describe masculinism as an ideology justifying male domination in society.{{efn|Brittan calls masculinism "the ideology that justifies and naturalizes male domination ... the ideology of patriarchy".{{r|Brittan 1989}}}}{{cite book |last1=Ikeda |first1=Satoshi |editor1-last=Griffin-Cohen |editor1-first=M. |editor2-last=Brodie |editor2-first=J. |title=Remapping Gender in the New Global Order |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-1-1359-8897-5 |page=112 |doi=10.4324/9780203099940-13 |chapter=Masculinity and masculinism under globalization: reflections on the Canadian case}} 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.{{cite book |last=Brittan |first=Arthur |title=Masculinity and Power |url=https://archive.org/details/masculinitypower00arth/page/4/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |date=1989 |publisher=Basil Blackwell |location=Oxford |page=4 |isbn=0-631-14167-7}}{{cite journal |first1=Rhoda |last1=Reddock |title=Men as Gendered Beings: The Emergence of Masculinity Studies in the Anglophone Caribbean |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27865342 |journal=Social and Economic Studies |date=September 2003 |issn=0037-7651 |pages=89–117 |volume=52 |issue=3|jstor=27865342 }}

The political scientist Georgia Duerst-Lahti distinguishes between masculism, which expresses the ethos of the early gender-egalitarian men's movement, and masculinism, which refers to the ideology of patriarchy.{{cite book |last=Duerst-Lahti |first=Georgia |chapter=Gender Ideology: masculinism and femininalism |pages=159–192 |editor1-last=Goertz |editor1-first=Gary |editor2-last=Mazur |editor2-first=Amy G. |title=Politics, gender, and concepts: theory and methodology |year=2008 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-72342-8}} Sociologists Melissa Blais and Francis Dupuis-Déri describe masculism as a form of antifeminism;{{cite journal |last1=Blais |first1=Melissa |last2=Dupuis-Déri |first2=Francis |title=Masculinism and the Antifeminist Countermovement |journal=Social Movement Studies |date=January 2012 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=21–39 |doi=10.1080/14742837.2012.640532 |s2cid=144983000 |issn=1474-2837}} they equate masculist and masculinist, attributing the former to author Warren Farrell. 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.{{sfn|Blais|Dupuis-Déri|2012|pp=22–23}} Dupuis-Déri writes that members of the men's movement refer to themselves as both masculinist and masculist.{{cite journal |last1=Dupuis-Déri |first1=Francis |title=Le 'masculinisme': une histoire politique du mot (en Anglais et en Français) |trans-title='Masculinism': a political history of the term (in English and French) |language=fr |journal=Recherches Féministes |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=97–123 |date=2009 |doi=10.7202/039213ar |doi-access=free}} According to Whitlow, masculinist theory such as Farrell's and that of gender-studies scholar R.W. Connell developed alongside third-wave feminism and queer theory, and was influenced by those theories' questioning of traditional gender roles and the meaning of terms such as man and woman.{{refn|name=Whitlow 2010}}

Ferrel Christensen, a Canadian philosopher and president of the former Alberta-based Movement for the Establishment of Real Gender Equality,{{r|Menzies 2007}}{{cite news |last1=Thorne |first1=Duncan |title=Gender bias in pamphlet, says human rights officer |url=https://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0006/ej000620.htm |work=The Edmonton Journal |date=20 June 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010228064228/https://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0006/ej000620.htm |archive-date=28 February 2001 |url-status=live}} writes that "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.

According to Bethany M. Coston and Michael Kimmel, members of the mythopoetic men's movement identify as masculinist.{{cite journal |last1=Coston |first1=Bethany M. |last2=Kimmel |first2=Michael |author-link2=Michael Kimmel |title=White Men as the New Victims: Reverse Discrimination Cases and the Men's Rights Movement |journal=Nevada Law Journal |date=2013 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=368–385, 371 |url=https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1465&context=nlj}} 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. ..."{{cite book |last=Davidson |first=Nicholas |title=The Failure of Feminism |pages=274–275 |publisher=Prometheus Books |location=Buffalo, NY |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-87975-408-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/failureoffeminis0000davi/page/274/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}} Christensen calls virism "an extreme brand of masculism and masculinism".

Sociologist Andreas Kemper describes masculism as a variation of masculinism whose goal is to oppose what its adherents see as female domination, making it fundamentally anti-feminist.{{cite journal |first1=Dorothee |last1=Beck |title=A Bridge with Three Pillars: Soldierly Masculinity and Violence in Media Representation in Germany |url=https://moving-the-social.ub.rub.de/index.php/MTS/article/view/9047 |journal=Moving the Social |date=9 August 2021 |issn=2197-0394 |pages=17–35 |volume=65 |doi=10.46586/mts.65.2021.17-36|url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |first1=David |last1=Meiering |first2=Aziz |last2=Dziri |first3=Naika |last3=Foroutan |title=Connecting Structures: Resistance, Heroic Masculinity and Anti-Feminism as Bridging Narratives within Group Radicalization |url=https://www.ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/article/view/3805 |journal=International Journal of Conflict and Violence |date=2020 |issn=1864-1385 |pages=1–19 |volume=14 |doi=10.4119/ijcv-3805}}

Masculism is sometimes termed meninism.{{cite news |last1=Zand |first1=Benjamin |title=#BBCtrending: Feminism v Meninism |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25462758 |access-date=25 June 2015 |work=BBC News |date=20 December 2013}}{{cite news |last1=Daubney |first1=Martin |author-link=Martin Daubney |title=Will 2015 be the year of meninism? |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11308455/Will-2015-be-the-year-of-meninism.html |access-date=25 June 2015 |work=The Telegraph |date=29 December 2014}}{{cite news |last1=Lynch |first1=Alison |title=Women disillusioned with feminism are turning to meninism |url=http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/25/women-disillusioned-with-feminism-are-turning-to-meninism-5265103/ |access-date=25 June 2015 |publisher=Metro |date=25 June 2015}}{{cite news |last1=Sanghani |first1=Radhika |title=Feminists v Meninists: The labels we could all afford to ditch |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11380282/Feminists-v-Meninists-The-labels-we-could-all-afford-ditch.html |access-date=25 June 2015 |publisher=The Telegraph |date=1 February 2015}}

{{See also|Sex differences in education}}

Many masculists oppose co-educational schooling, believing that single-sex schools better promote the well-being of boys.{{sfn|Blais|Dupuis-Déri|2012|p=23}}

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.

{{See also|Violence against men}}

{{Violence against men}}

Masculists cite higher rates of suicide in men than women.{{sfn|Blais|Dupuis-Déri|2012|p=23}} Farrell expresses concern about violence against men being depicted as humorous, in the media and elsewhere.{{cite book |last1=Farrell |first1=Warren |title=The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex |date=1993 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-0-671-79349-4 |edition=1st |url=https://archive.org/details/mythofmalepowerw0000farr/page/n8/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}}{{Page needed|date=June 2022}}{{Third-party inline|date=June 2022}}

They also express concern about violence against men being ignored or minimized in comparison to violence against women,{{sfn|Blais|Dupuis-Déri|2012|p=23}}{{cite news |last=Mvulane |first=Zama |title=Do men suffer spousal abuse? |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221033948/http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20081125064002133C731559&set_id= |archive-date=February 21, 2009 |url=http://www.iol.co.za:80/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20081125064002133C731559&set_id= |work=Cape Times |via=IOL |location=South Africa |page=12 |date=November 25, 2008 |url-status=dead}} asserting gender symmetry in domestic violence.{{sfn|Blais|Dupuis-Déri|2012|p=23}} 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,{{r|Farrell 1993|p=240–253}}{{Third-party inline|date=June 2022}} to lack of sympathy for male victims in domestic violence cases when the perpetrator is female, and to dismissal of female-on-male sexual assault and sexual harassment cases.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}

{{See also|Men's studies|Black male studies}}

A masculist approach to gender studies, which have frequently focused on woman-based or feminist approaches, examines oppression within a masculinist, patriarchal society from a male standpoint.{{cite book |last1=Hoogensen |first1=Gunhild |last2=Solheim |first2=Bruce O. |title=Women in Power: World Leaders Since 1960 |publisher=Praeger Publishers |year=2006 |isbn=0-275-98190-8 |page=21 |lccn=2006015398 |chapter=Women in Theory and Practice |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/womeninpowerworl0000hoog/page/21/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}} According to A Dictionary of Media and Communication (2011), "Masculists reject the idea of universal patriarchy, arguing that before feminism most men were as disempowered as most women. However, in the post-feminist era they argue that men are in a worse position because of the emphasis on women's rights."{{cite book |last1=Chandler |first1=Daniel |last2=Munday |first2=Rod |title=A Dictionary of Media and Communication |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199568758.001.0001 |date=2011 |edition=1st |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100138854 |chapter-url-access= |isbn=978-0-1995-6875-8 |chapter=masculinism (masculism) |page=253 |ol=24851719M}}

In the wake of the abolition of apartheid, 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: "Formenism, 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" [emphasis in original].{{cite journal |last1=Nadar |first1=Sarojini |last2=Potgieter |first2=Cheryl |title=Liberated through submission?: The Worthy Woman's Conference as a case study of formenism |journal=Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=141–151 |date=Fall 2010 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329208749 |format=PDF |via=ResearchGate |jstor=10.2979/fsr.2010.26.2.141 |doi=10.2979/fsr.2010.26.2.141}}{{rp|143}} 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.{{cite journal |last=Dube |first=Siphiwe |title=Muscular Christianity in contemporary South Africa: The case of the Mighty Men Conference |journal=HTS Theological Studies/Teologiese Studies |volume=71 |issue=3 |pages=1–9 |publisher=AOSIS OpenJournals |date=July 2015 |url=https://hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/view/2945/html}}{{cite journal |last=Dube |first=Siphiwe |title=Race, whiteness and transformation in the Promise Keepers America and the Mighty Men Conference: A comparative analysis |journal=HTS Theological Studies/Teologiese Studies |volume=72 |issue=1 |pages=1–8 |publisher=AOSIS OpenJournals |date=November 2016 |url=http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/view/3476/html}} 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.{{cite book |author=Pillay, Miranda |date=2015 |chapter=Mighty Men, Mighty Families: A pro-family Christian movement to (re)enforce patriarchal control? |editor-last1=Conradie |editor-first1=Ernst M. |editor-last2=Pillay |editor-first2=Miranda |title=Ecclesial reform and deform movements in the South African context |pages=61–77 |publisher=Sun Press |location=Stellenbosch, South Africa |isbn=978-1-920689-76-6 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yMTSCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA61}}

The Worthy Women Conference is an auxiliary to the MMC in advocating a belief in the inherent superiority of men over women.{{r|Nadar 2010|p=142–143}} 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.{{cite book |author=Nortjé-Meyer, Lilly |date=2015 |chapter=A movement seeking to embody support of patriarchal structures and patterns in church and society: Gertha Wiid's Worthy Women movement |editor-last1=Conradie |editor-first1=Ernst M. |editor-last2=Pillay |editor-first2=Miranda |title=Ecclesial reform and deform movements in the South African context |pages=86–93 |publisher=Sun Press |location=Stellenbosch, South Africa |isbn=978-1-920689-76-6 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yMTSCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA86}} Her success is attributed to her balancing claims that God created the gender hierarchy, but that women are no less valuable than men,{{cite journal |last=Nortjé-Meyer |first=Lilly |title=A critical analysis of Gretha Wiid's sex ideology and her biblical hermeneutics |journal=Verbum et Ecclesia |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=1–7 |publisher=AOSIS OpenJournals |date=November 2011 |doi=10.4102/ve.v32i1.472 |doi-access=free}} and that restoration of traditional gender roles relieves existential anxiety in post-apartheid South Africa.{{r|Nadar 2010|p=148}}

{{Div col|colwidth=30em}}

• Identity politics
• Manosphere
• Men's liberation
• Men's movement
• Men's studies

{{div col end}}

;Men's organizations

• International Men's Day (19 November)

::Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Australia, India, United States, Singapore, United Kingdom, Malta, South Africa, Hungary, Ireland, Ghana and Canada

• Save Indian Family

UK:

• Fathers 4 Justice

Canada:

• Canadian Association for Equality

France:

• {{ill|SOS Papa|fr|SOS Papa}}

; Notable people associated with masculism

• Robert E. Bly
• Warren Farrell
• Esther Vilar
• David Benatar

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Cite web |last=Bard |first=Christine |author-link= |title=Masculinism in Europe |url=https://ehne.fr/en/encyclopedia/themes/gender-and-europe/european-man-a-hegemonic-masculinity-19th-21st-centuries/masculinism-in-europe |access-date=2024-02-23 |website=Digital Encyclopedia of European History- Sorbonne Université |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Chandler |first1=Daniel |last2=Munday |first2=Rod |title=A Dictionary of Media and Communication |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acref/9780198841838.001.0001 |date=2020 |edition=3rd |chapter-url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198841838.001.0001/acref-9780198841838-e-1615 |chapter-url-access=subscription |isbn=978-0-1988-4183-8 |chapter=masculinism (masculism)}}
• {{cite thesis |last1=Malmi |first1=Pasi |title=Discrimination Against Men: Appearance and Causes in the Context of a Modern Welfare State |date=6 February 2009 |url=https://lauda.ulapland.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/61748/Pasi_Malmi_v%E4it%F6skirja.pdf?sequence=1 |type=doctoral thesis |publisher=University of Lapland |format=PDF |isbn=978-952-484-279-2 |issn=0788-7604 |lccn=2009447401}}
• {{Citation |last1=Bain |first1=A.L. |title=Masculinism in Geography |date=2020 |encyclopedia=International Encyclopedia of Human Geography |pages=425–431 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-102295-5.10280-x |access-date=2024-02-23 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-08-102296-2 |last2=Arun-Pina |first2=C.|doi=10.1016/b978-0-08-102295-5.10280-x |url-access=subscription }}

• {{Wiktionary inline|masculism}}

{{Masculinism}}

{{Political ideologies}}{{Discrimination}}

Category:Masculinity

Category:Men's movement

Category:1980s neologisms

Category:Men's rights

Category:Antifeminism

Category:Political ideologies