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Article Excerpt
I am grateful to the editors of Social Theory and Practice for soliciting responses to my paper, "The Second Sexism." (1) Given the prevailing orthodoxy in the academy and the sensitivity of the issue, the views I defend in that paper will be deemed threatening (2) by many readers, as they have been by at least some of those who were invited to respond in this issue of the journal. Although my views do indeed challenge the overly ideological excesses of this orthodoxy, I suggested that opposing the second sexism is a fitting complement and aid to combating anti-female sexism. However, I am under no illusions. My position is likely to be misunderstood and, where it is not merely dismissed (sometimes vituperatively, as inconsistent with received opinion), it is likely to be subject to numerous (sometimes overly confident) mistaken objections. Therefore I welcome the four responses that appear immediately after my paper, and the opportunity to reply to them.
Before I consider these objections, however, there are two preliminary observations to be made. First, had I written and submitted a paper that was yet another contribution to the vast literature about anti-female sexism, it is extremely unlikely that the editors would have sought out responses to it. The value placed on presenting different views is usually in inverse proportion to the popularity of the view to which alternatives might be sought. It is (apparently) unorthodox views to which it is thought responses and challenges are valuable.
Second, it is noteworthy that all of my critics are drawn from the ranks of feminism. Conservatives are unrepresented even though much of what I said in "The Second Sexism" is antagonistic to their views about the extent to which behavioral differences between the sexes are innate. The radically inequitable representation of the feminist and conservative views is very likely indicative of the current tendencies in social philosophy.
Four Responses
Given that all four responses emanate from some or other feminist perspective, there is considerable overlap between them. However, there are also differences, and the general tone and thrust of all the responses is not the same. Of all the authors, Carol Quinn and Rosemarie Tong seem to be most sympathetic to my position, even though they have some criticisms to offer. (3) In my view, most (but not all) of these criticisms rest on misunderstandings of my position. (4) Had they understood my view correctly, I hope that they would largely (even though not entirely) have agreed with me. One obstacle to their endorsing my position is that they are unsure whether mine is a "pro-feminist" view or a "men's rights" view. I see my view as a pro-feminist one. I am opposed to sexism, whether the victims are male or female.
The uncertainty of Professors Quinn and Tong is generated, I suspect, by two considerations. First is their interpretation of the pro-feminist view, according to which the "goal of the men's movement is to ... encourage ... men in their abandonment of a masculinity that is oppressive to women and harmful to themselves." (5) This is too narrow an understanding of a pro-feminist view. Indeed a pro-feminist view of the second sexism embodies this feature, but it need not restrict itself to this goal, which assumes that men alone are responsible for the masculinity that is oppressive to women and harmful to themselves. Not only (many) men, but also (many) women accept and support this view of masculinity. My pro-feminist view opposes the second sexist attitudes and practices wherever they are found. To this extent my pro-feminist view is not necessarily incompatible with creating "an awareness of the hazards of being male" and building "a substantial movement among men that recognizes the costs and discriminations of being masculine," which is how Professors Quinn and Tong understand the "men's rights" view. The "men's rights" view (as just described) does become incompatible with mine when it recognizes and either opposes only the costs of being male and not also those of being female, or opposes but underrates the costs of being female.
The second consideration that may explain the uncertainty Professors Quinn and Tong have in interpreting my view is the fact that not all who go by the name "feminist" have the gender-blind opposition to sexism that I am advocating. Some "feminists" (6) are instead advocates of a "women's rights" view paralleling the kind of "men's fights" view that I said is incompatible with feminism. I am not pro that kind of feminism just as I am not a defender of an exclusivist "men's rights" view. Many feminists are not pro that kind of feminism.
James Sterba, Kenneth Clatterbaugh, and Tom Digby were less sympathetic to my position. James Sterba denies that there is discrimination against men. Kenneth Clatterbaugh grants that there is such discrimination, (7) but denies that this amounts to sexism. Tom Digby is vehemently opposed to saying that males are the victims of either discrimination or sexism.
Tom Digby accuses me of being an "angry man" and an antifeminist. (8) These sorts of moves are both regrettable and unfair for the very same reasons that leveling accusations of "man-hater" at all feminists is regrettable and unfair. It does not facilitate an open-minded consideration of others' views, and it ignores the fact that while some feminists are man-haters and some men who are concerned about male disadvantage are "angry" antifeminists (if not outright misogynists), not all are. Professor Digby's labeling is worrying in an important further way. Given the prevailing views, at least in the academy, the charges of "angry man" and "antifeminist" can be anticipated to have the "chilling effect" that is antithetical to the kind of discussion that should go on in academia. (9)
Professor Digby and I are in agreement about the importance of undermining the gender stereotypes underlying male and female advantage and disadvantage. He believes that feminism is the most effective way to attain this. (10) I agree that there is much that feminism can do--at least if we are speaking about the kind of feminism that recognizes the second sexism. A feminism that denies or ignores the second sexism, however, will not be as effective. Indeed, I demonstrated in "The Second Sexism" that much of the recent success has been in weakening the constraints and disadvantages of the female role without commensurate success in diminishing the costs of the male role.
Kenneth Clatterbaugh says that virtually every point in my paper "has been argued for in the men's rights movement in the late 1970s." (11) If by "every point" he means every example I provided of male disadvantage, then, indeed, I would be surprised if nobody had ever mentioned these before. But what difference does it make if these examples have been mentioned before? The instances of female disadvantage are recited and repeated in hundreds, if not thousands, of works. Just as (many of) those works approach and probe them in different ways, shed different light on them, and mount different arguments about them, I hope that "The Second Sexism" also has at least something of a novel approach to the issues.
James Sterba accuses me of having presented the "wolf" of discrimination against women in the "sheep's clothing" of being a benefit for women. That is not what I did. Instead, "The Second Sexism" suggested that there are two wolves, not one. It is Professor Sterba who dresses up the second "wolf"--the wolf of discrimination against men--in the "sheep's clothing" of being a benefit for men.
I encourage those readers who are impressed with the general thrust of my respondents' criticisms to reread my paper carefully. Such a reading should reveal why many of my respondents' responses are inadequate. In my reply here, I plan to render some of my rejoinders explicit, to clarify my position, and to advance some further ideas and arguments. Space constraints clearly preclude my addressing every point I would like to address. I restrict myself to what I take to be some more important or representative points that my respondents raised. (12)
Defining Discrimination and Sexism
Kenneth Clatterbaugh and Tom Digby both take issue with my definitions--the former disagreeing only with how I understand "sexism," and the latter objecting also to the way I define "discrimination." Kenneth Clatterbaugh suggests that I try "to accomplish by definition what" I need "to accomplish by argument." (13) Clearly, whether some phenomenon constitutes "discrimination" or "sexism" rests on how exactly one understands these terms. Given this, however, I could as easily accuse these two respondents of defining the second sexism out of existence--trying to accomplish by definition what they need to accomplish by argument. (14)
Professor Clatterbaugh objects to a number of features of my definition, but many of these (15) are (in my view) not crucial to my argument and thus, because of space constraints, I shall ignore them here. One crucial problem with his objection is that he has an extremely narrow view of sexism. He thinks discrimination must be sufficiently widespread before it can be termed sexism. (16) He then erroneously attributes that view to me too, but on the relevant page of mine that he cites in support of this attribution, I claim that even though it is a minority of women who are disadvantaged by combat exclusion, these women are indeed victims of (unfair) discrimination. (17) Given that I think unfair discrimination is sexism, I believe that it is sexism to exclude women from combat. I refer to the numbers of women affected by this only to show the absurdity of focusing on this exclusion without also being concerned about the many more...
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