What Is Power?
Although the earliest stages of agriculture may have been developed by women cultivating wild grains in the ancient Middle East, as sociologist Elise Boulding suggests, many scholars, such as researcher Heidi Hartmann, theorize men came to dominate societies after agriculture took hold, which allowed them to further constitute control over family, labor, economics, culture, and religion.21 Accordingly, power is often seen through a patriarchal lens; he who controls the purse strings controls the rest. There's no question money allows people greater freedom and control in many areas of life, but being able to exert command over a system is just one kind of power. There is another kind of power that is not as loud, but just as valid: personal power.
Real power is well-rounded. It does not just revolve around external rewards such as income, social status, and material possessions. Well-rounded power includes internal rewards such as health, inner peace, spirituality, being loved and respected, emotional awareness and openness, positive concept of self, and the ability to utilize personal values to enhance the quality of everyday life, both for the person and the community.
Ultimately power comes down to having control over one's life and having access to fulfilling personal experiences. In this light, life span would be a reasonable gauge. The World Health Organization has listed these average life expectancies for men and women born into low- and high-income families between 1990 and 2012:
Low-income-born male: 54.7 years.
Low-income-born female: 57.3 years.
High-income-born male: 73 years.
High-income-born female: 80 years.
Average global life expectancy at birth for males born 1990 to 2012: 64.7 years.
Average global life expectancy at birth for females born 1990 to 2012: 69.7 years.22
The global average life expectancy for women is five years (8 percent) longer than for men. While wealthy men will live 15.7 years (27 percent) longer than poor women, women from wealthy backgrounds will live more than twenty-five years (46 percent) longer than poor men. Women make up four out of every five centenarians.23
Slightly more men are diagnosed with prostate cancer than women are diagnosed with breast cancer, yet breast cancer research is supported by federal spending over prostate cancer at a ratio of nearly two to one.24 The US government has also set up an online resource for women's health (www.WomensHealth.gov) but there is no comparable www.menshealth.gov. Curiously, men's health is a sub-group on the women's health page (www.WomensHealth.gov/mens-health/). On their website there is a banner announcing the National Women's Health Week where women can learn more about health concerns, but a National Men's Health Week does not exist. Some countries around the world—including Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US—have begun recognizing International Men's Day (19 November) in part to raise awareness of men's and boys' health, but it has yet to be supported on the same scale as walks for breast cancer.
Men also die at higher rates from nearly all the top fifteen causes of death; the largest differences were in diseases of the heart, suicide, and fatal injuries sustained from unintentional accidents.25 Women are more likely to have suicidal thoughts than men, but suicide is four times higher among men, representing 79 percent of all suicides in the US.26
Ninety-two percent of work fatalities in America were men. Construction accounted for the most fatalities, with the majority of accidents occurring from falls and slips.27 Around the world men far outnumber women in dangerous jobs.
There are more women with children who are homeless than men with children who are homeless, but overall 68 percent of the US homeless population is male, and 40 percent of homeless men have served in the armed forces, as compared to 34 percent of the general adult population. The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans estimates that on any given night 271,000 veterans are homeless, most of them men.28 This national disgrace continues without much major media coverage or national dialogue about the need to pay back our brave veterans.
From these facts we can deduce that in some ways women actually have more power than men do.
Act Like a Man: The Heavy Price of Bottling Emotions
For men, being physically bullied and taunted is such a huge part of the boyhood experience that it has come to be seen as normal. “Boys will be boys,” people say. “That's just how they are.” When young boys internalize these beliefs about themselves as being tough, that they are supposed just to take things like a man, they ultimately get cut off from the more sensitive sides of themselves that are needed later in life. As a consequence, intimacy and relationships can become a major struggle further down the road. A corollary is that they do not learn to ask for help from friends, family, teachers, coaches, or others who could do so to alleviate some of the negativity they face.
When a young boy is told crying is for girls, he learns that it is not acceptable for him to express his emotions so he puts them away. When anyone is told who they are and how they are feeling is wrong, they begin to hold back or try to change their internal experience. How this plays out in relationships is the person is never quite sure who they are or what they want. They begin to run a script that does not have any real depth or roots. Twenty years later when this young boy becomes a man who meets and falls in love with an amazing woman, he is feeling confused when she says she does not feel close to him. She wants him to open up more and he has no idea what she is talking about because he has never opened up in his life.
Other men who as boys got bullied in school can still carry anger from those experiences. When this anger goes unacknowledged it functions on a subconscious level—often as a background voice telling the person how bad, ugly, or stupid they are—almost taking the place of the external bullies. This in turn damages self-confidence, and may be expressed in relationships as the man having a hard time saying no or standing up for what he wants. He might even get placed in the “nice guy” category out of fear of ever being a bully himself. Another way this can be expressed is in keeping others at a distance due to believing other people are mean and untrustworthy, and letting them get close will inevitably hurt. On a deeper level, because they believe their peers are bad and mean, they think they are also similar, and therefore unlovable. If someone believes at their core that they are unlovable, letting love in or giving love becomes nearly impossible.
Many men turn to sex because it is the only place where they receive positive physical touch. Otherwise, their lives are basically void of physical contact with others. This internal personal struggle with touching and nourishment can cause sex and relationships to feel empty, lonely, and pointless, effectively cutting a person off from experiencing true pleasure and connection. Again we point out that when young men turn to porn for imagined erotic experiences, they never get to see men and women touching each other in tender or caring ways.
Taboos
Sexuality is definitely the elephant in the room: we see it yet we don't talk about it. But it's getting so big that we can't ignore it any more. Belle Knox, the infamous Duke University student-turned-porn-star, recently echoed the sentiment long held by feminists that the patriarchy fears female sexuality.29 It's an outdated message that is resonating less and less. Show us a Western man—today—who doesn't want to #FreeTheNipple, and we'll show you a gay man.
As a society, we may be afraid of female sexuality . . . But we are equally afraid of male sexuality and teen sexuality; we also pretend senior citizens' sexuality doesn't exist. Is the patriarchy really to blame? Or is it just that sexuality is kind of messy and nobody wants to take on the great big gray zone surrounding the traditionally socially acceptable standards?
A French short film called Oppressed Majority recently reversed men's and women's roles. A lot of people were hyped about it; several feminist friends of ours shared it on social media. A man commented underneath one of the posts that he was adamantly against violence, but men and women are different and he wouldn't mind being sexually assaulted by several attractive wome
n because he would interpret it as a desirable sexual experience. The film is trying to be funny, but all it does is show how little the director (a woman) understands men. She insinuates through the laziness and insensitivity of the women playing male characters that men don't care about sexual assault against women, which is odd considering men by and large take on the more dangerous jobs where they would be protectors of women and, indirectly, freedom of expression. We also found it interesting that the director chose to portray the women (played by men) as weak and helpless, which made us wonder what she was trying to say about women . . .
How come no one wants to talk about sexism against men? A blogger named Nicki Daniels wrote an open letter to bearded hipsters, deriding them for ruining her “beard fetish.” She said,
Ever since I was a little girl I've loved a man with a beard. To me, they meant strength, power, MANLINESS. Someone who could protect me. Unfortunately, you guys have turned it into a fashion statement. The beard has turned into the padded bra of masculinity. Sure it looks sexy, but watcha got under there? There's a whole generation running around looking like lumberjacks, and most of you can't change a . . . tire.30
It went viral, and frankly it was pretty funny unless, of course, you were a bearded hipster. But if a man wrote a post like that ranting about women having hairy armpits or huge bushes he would be torn to pieces.
Why is it that a woman can publicly discuss dumping her boyfriend for not going down on her, talk about how empowering it is to sleep with younger men, create a taxi service that only employs female drivers and refuses to give men rides, or even suggest men should be taxed more, but a man suggesting the reverse is unthinkable?31 The double standard is typically depicted as women getting the short end of the big stick, but looked at through this new lens men are getting the shaft at least as often.
If a man made a movie in the same vein as Oppressed Majority perhaps we'd see the flip side of gender hostility, like how men are treated as success objects (versus women as sex objects), hardly ever receive positive physical touch outside sex, and are far less likely to win in custody battles after divorce. Perhaps we'd see how “affirmative consent” rules on campuses put young men in the position of parent (he is still expected to take all the initiative and therefore take on all of the responsibility) and young women in the position of child (she shares none of the burden of initiation or responsibility and therefore has no accountability). Or we'd see how in cases of sexual assault men are seen as guilty until proven innocent yet there are zero consequences for false accusers. Maybe we'd start to question why women have the right to become a soldier and the privilege to opt out if there was a draft, yet every American male has the responsibility to register with the Selective Service within thirty days of his eighteenth birthday and the responsibility to fight in the event of war32 (which is as sexist as making all eighteen-year-old females register to reproduce if the country were to need more children—Nazi Germany tried something like this with the Lebensborn program during the Second World War). Perhaps we'd learn that a greater percentage of men are raped in prison every year than women are raped in the US.33
Male rape is largely ignored, downplayed, or made into a joke in everyday life and in the media. The FBI does not even list any statistics about sexual assault where males are the victims; with information so hard to find, you'd think it never happens.34 Yet it does. While far more women report experiencing rape at some time in their lives, more men report experiencing unwanted “completed sexual abuse” as a child.35 And approximately the same amount of women and men report experiencing sexual violence other than rape.36 Although women feel less safe than men, men are actually at a much higher risk of being victims of assaults and violent crimes.37
Much of the reported sexual violence against men is from unwanted advances from other males. Perhaps that number would be higher if so many adult males minded being “assaulted” by a woman or “being made to penetrate” was included in the definition of rape. We must also consider that male victims, regardless of the sex of the perpetrator, are less likely to report the violence and seek services. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence explained these reasons why:
The stigma of being a male victim, the perceived failure to conform to the macho stereotype, the fear of not being believed, the denial of victim status, and the lack of support from society, family members, and friends . . . boys are less likely to report sexual abuse due to fear, anxiety associated with being perceived as gay, the desire to appear self-reliant, and the will to be independent.38
We would add shame to the list. Unless it is a boy being raped by a man (as in many of the Catholic priest scandals), people seem less inclined—if at all inclined—to speak out against sexual violence against men. It could even be called taboo to do so. Even when male victims speak up, people don't really know what to do about it. There's no clear legislation around it. It is also difficult for people to wrap their heads around a man having an erection and simultaneously being a victim. If he was aroused, he must have wanted it, right?
A female victim's orgasm during rape does not detract from her unwillingness to participate in the act, so why should a man's? When you talk to men about their sexual histories, you might be surprised to learn that many of them lost their virginities in less than ideal ways. Some will admit that the first woman they had sex with isolated them and then forced herself on them, and they just went with it because they felt like they had to. We don't call those women rapists, but if they were men we would.
Young men especially are told that it's not okay to say no, and they are not taught how to rebuff unwanted sexual advances or instructed on what to do if they are sexually assaulted. Instead, they are socially conditioned always to be ready and willing to perform sexually with any woman who offers. Denying men as victims downplays other incidences where men are expected to just handle the situation or “take things like a man,” including spousal abuse (verbal and physical), stalking, and harassment.
Could the situation improve? It is helpful to have laws around consent and boundaries, but we need to teach children about the psychological aspects of sex and what real consent and boundaries look like, not just these two standard requirements: (1) Does this person want to give consent?; and (2) Is this person capable of giving consent? We cannot expect society to be well-equipped to handle the dark side of sexuality if we refuse to acknowledge the complex nature of sexuality or take an honest look at how, and more importantly why sexual assault happens.
Objectification is a prerequisite for rape. One reason why men sexually objectify women is because the majority of the time they are the ones approaching women to ask them out on dates or initiate a sexual experience. A good portion of that time they get rejected, even when they're in a relationship, and it hurts a lot less if the person they're getting rejected by can be thought of as an object. Over time this can breed contempt for whoever is not taking the initiative; it also reinforces selfdoubt in the other party about what they are valued for.
As more women begin to take the lead romantically and sexually, they will have a greater appreciation of the process of objectification and rejection, and men will begin to understand the flip side of objectification and rejection that has discontented women for so long. The same thing goes for other role reversals, such as more women becoming breadwinners and men spending more time with the kids.
Just as we are exploring and raising social awareness around areas where women are repressed, we must also allow men to examine areas where they feel silenced. Women will also need to explore and acknowledge their own biases, double standards, and reverse sexism toward men. Everyone is responsible for their actions, no doubt. At the same time, however, we shouldn't underestimate the power of the system and situation on individual behavior. When we only acknowledge women's vulnerabilities, telling men they are potential perpetrators and women they are potential victims, we do everyone a disservice and perpetuate imbalance. This is not a way to blame women for s
exual assault against men, or undermine the significance of the sexual assault that happens to women; it is a way to let both sexes discover paths of communication that can unite the sexes in their commitment to end sexual assault together. Such violations of our physical boundaries are violations against human dignity.
Justice for All?
In the late 1980s a sex bias was found pervading the justice system: it seemed courts were placing women on longer probation periods than men who were convicted of similar crimes.39 The issue was looked into by the judicial system. In reality, men convicted of similar crimes were more likely to get prison sentences, not the lighter sentence of probation, which the women got.40 Today, fathers are twice as likely as mothers to have been in prison for five or more years.41 And the women who did go to prison entered a much different environment; Warren Farrell recalled one attorney's remarks in The Myth of Male Power:
Women felons go to a former school a few miles east of the state capitol. The men's institutions are prisons, plain and hard. They offer cells, guards, cell block gangs . . . The women's institution feels like the school it was built to be, and its staff encourages reform and rehabilitation.42
Currently, just 8 percent of inmates are women.43 The Female Offender Programs and Services (FOPS) of California declared on their site that they have created a “gender-responsive” program for female offenders that offers them services, parenting classes, guidance, and self-help treatments in order to rehabilitate them and to make their transition back into the community more successful when they are released. One of FOPS' goals is to treat female offenders with dignity and respect within an ethical institutional setting. Additionally, FOPS provides vocational and academic programs, career and technical education, pre-release guidance, art classes, and support groups for community betterment projects. The philosophy behind this is to increase the women's opportunities and to reduce the amount of incarcerated women, while increasing public safety. There is no equivalent “MOPS” program for men.44
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