Macho revanchism hides an ugly face
Men’s societies in universities and colleges have nothing to do with promoting equality, argues Chris Strafford
Over the last few years there has been a growing trend of reactionary moves against women’s representation and the women’s movement, and this has been reflected in universities and colleges.
A common argument now being put forward by everyone from the far right to a gaggle of peculiar libertarians is: ‘Women have their own groups and student societies, so men should have them too’. This has resulted in the abolition, merging or downgrading of women’s officers posts in student unions, to the extent that only eight universities now have a full-time women’s officer in student unions that are largely dominated by men. Over the last few weeks ‘Man Collective’ (Oxford) and ‘The Men’s Society’ (Manchester) have been accepted as recognised student societies, resulting in national media coverage. Rightwing commentators have dubbed this ‘men’s liberation’, a supposed reaction to ‘positive discrimination’.
These developments must be seen within the wider context of a growing macho revanchism and the recent attacks on women, such as through the Welfare Reform Bill, which essentially seeks to impoverish single mothers, new measures against sex workers, the continuing inequality in pay and life opportunities, not to mention the increasing trend to blame women for provoking sexual violence and rape, resulting in a low rate of convictions.
What some are saying is that it is men who are now oppressed – not because of class, ethnicity, sexuality or disability, but because the women’s movement has ‘gone too far’ and now it is not misogyny, but misandry (discrimination against men), that is the problem. To back up this assertion a variety of different ‘facts’ are employed – male underachievement in education, higher rates of suicide, poor investment in male-only cancers …
But these phenomena are produced by class oppression, not misandry. Schooling for the working class is still centred on creating a significant number of semi-skilled or unskilled workers. Most of my school friends never went to university and ended up working in shops, as labourers, on apprenticeships or spent months at a time on the dole. Suicides are undoubtedly higher amongst the working class – unemployment, poverty, alienation and the constant stresses of capitalist society drive individuals to despair. It is also obvious that workers with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses are less likely to survive than the rich. The NHS ‘postcode lottery’ is not actually random – life expectancy for men in working class areas of Glasgow is 28 years lower than those living in the lush suburbs.
Another common argument used by supporters of the ‘male backlash’ is that men need to discuss masculinity and to build a ‘positive male identity’. even supposed communists like George Waterhouse of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain has been defending these groups, writing on Facebook: “The main aim of the men’s society is to counteract what we refer to as ‘the fall of man’. Too long have we listened to that serpent and munched upon his proverbial apples.”1
In the abstract there is little problem with men discussing masculinity. Indeed there have been men’s caucuses doing that in order to aid the movement for women’s liberation in parallel with ‘women’s only’ meetings. In other words, male debate may be useful and play a positive role in strengthening the women’s movement. However, the new groups have been formed on a rather different basis.
To understand what they are about and where they are going we need to know who is behind them. In Manchester we have been very successful in exposing them. For example, the founder of the new society is Ben Wild, a rightwing evangelical Christian. Whilst well spoken and polite, Ben thinks that ‘straight pride’ might be a good slogan for a men’s society. Two of the Manchester committee belong to Conservative Future, the Tory Party’s student organisation. Unsurprisingly it is Conservative students who have been at the forefront of attacks on women’s officers posts.
But the Manchester committee also boasts a couple of individuals with links to the Orange Order, who have been quite happy to show their support for Ulster unionist extremists. After pointing this out we were threatened with libel action and violence, and the membership of such Facebook groups seems to have ended. The committee also includes a UK Independence Party supporter, who is notorious for choosing Goebbels as a favourite historical character!
All this may look like name-calling and silly student politics, but it is obvious that this group represents a coalescing of rightwing forces determined to undermine gains women have made over the last few decades. Their opponents have been labelled “feminist Nazi dykes”, “lesbians” and that age-old favourite of rightwing idiots everywhere: “men-hating feminists”.
In response to these moves students across the country have begun mobilising to counter the influence of men’s groups. At Goldsmiths University a move to accept the ‘Gentleman’s Club’ was defeated by a meeting of students. In Manchester supporters of Communist Students, the Socialist Worker Student Society, the Commune and the Anarchist Federation have met to discuss a plan of action for the new term. We are intent on winning the argument on campus. Those of us based in Manchester are looking to link up with other groups in order to present a united response to these attacks.
“The committee also includes a UK Independence Party supporter, who is notorious for choosing Goebbels as his favourite historical character!” [Published in Weekly Worker]
“The committee also includes a UK Independence Party supporter, who is notorious for choosing Goebbels as a favourite historical character!” [Altered version on CS and CPGB websites]
The pronoun’s right this time- considering you’re referring to a cis-gendered woman here, but the rest is still inaccurate. She is not a UKIP supporter- she considered joining a while ago, but instead chose to be a eurosceptic member of the Lib Dems. She didn’t even vote UKIP in the Euro Elections (she in fact voted English Democrats, which granted is just as bad). Also technically, she didn’t refer to Goebbels as her ‘favourite historical character’ but merely that he was ‘good at PR’. Horrible, all the same, but your information is wrong.
You know I think the person in question’s role in the MENS Society is misguided and completely terrible, but will you and your paper ever flippin learn to get your facts right before you publish something? It’s getting quite ridiculous now.
Well she considered joining UKIP, how wrong of me to assume that her views had changed so much in a couple of months. I put she was a UKIP supporter, not only did she once support this party she also considered joining.
You have told me on more than one occassion that she picked Goebells as her favourite historical character. I believe your words were “she chose Goebells because he kept his election promises”. Either way, it is pretty sick for someone like Goebells either for PR skills or election promises. Maybe you think it is okay for someone to like Goebells either for PR skills?
The edit of the pronoun was an error by the editor because he assumed that the Men’s society would naturally be Men, obviously I failed to convey to him that idiots like the person in question have joined.
All in all the facts in the paper are largely correct. Why defend her?
“You know I think the person in question’s role in the MENS Society is misguided and completely terrible”
Yes and you do nothing whatsoever, you sit meekly and quietly whilst she says all of this stuff and then attack comrades for rightly condemning her publicly and openly.
Maybe you also think that her opinion that women “indulge” in soft methods of suicide like wrist slitting as opposed to men being hard and taking the hard options is misguided, maybe you think their belief that they have more right to live in Israel than the Palestians and that “Israel is awesome” is misguided, maybe you think that men are never given the “benefit of the doubt” when it comes to claims about rape is misguided, maybe you think that her view that men should be able to force a women not to have an abortion is misguided. How far does one of your friends have to go until you wont defend them, comrade?
I’m not defending her politically am I? I just pointed out the WW got its facts wrong. Again. ‘Misguided’ because she thinks she can steer the MENS Society into something progressive, and for them to campaign on welfare issues and to promote a ‘positive masculine identity’. That is something that won’t happen because of the people involved and what they actually want the MENS Society to be. I tell her that constantly. Hence her being misguided. The ‘completely terrible’ bit is the lovely long list of examples that you gave. As you well bloody know.
I’m not attacking you for attacking her. Of course you should. Just when you talk about someone in a national paper, make sure you get your facts right. And funnily enough, I would politically attack her publicly, as I do in LGBT meetings. As I have done in the Riveters before. Being someone’s friend doesn’t stop you publically airing your differences. I’ve politically attacked you enough times in the pages of the WW to prove that haven’t I?
As I pointed out, the facts are largely correct, she was a supporter of UKIP, still supports right wing euro-sceptic politics.
Her politics on women’s liberation are not “progressive” Robbie, her steering is not towards a nice little hippy tea drinking session and a discussion on Masculinity. She is against a woman’s right to choose, think women “indulge” in suicide, think that men are oppressed through misandry. Not class, not ethnicity, not sexuality and not disability. How is she progressive?
I meant what she sees as ‘progressive’ not me- as I made clear, the MENS Society isn’t something that can be made progressive, simply because of the project it is intended to be. To be fair though, most of the stuff she trys to get them to do is more hippy tea drinking and discussion than they’d like.
Again, I’m not politically defending her- I’ve made clear that whatever her intentions or otherwise, the MENS Society is reactionary (as is a lot of her politics), and her position is completely wrong. Saying that, I highly doubt she sees men oppressed through ‘misandry’. If she does then that is a terrible position, something I will have strong words with her about. She does though technically see that men are oppressed by class, ethnicity, sexuality and disability- otherwise she wouldn’t be active in the liberation campaigns would she?
And technically, she never was a ‘supporter’ of UKIP in the proper sense, otherwise she would’ve voted for them in the Euros. And to put her politics down to simply ‘right-wing euro-sceptic’ is a bit disingenous and doesn’t take account of the issues she does have a progressive opinion on e.g. drugs, asylumn seekers (though technically not immigration per se), climate change etc.
OK, I’m through with this. And tbf, my ‘attack’ wasn’t against you or in favour of her per se, more as ever, the poor editorship of your paper, which I have frequently encountered.
What a joke, Nick Griffin thinks OAP’s should get a better pension, he also wants to build more council houses. Do they outweigh his overall politics, no? It is the same situation, she may on one or two issues be “progressive” but overall her politics are those of the right. You are just lying, did you not see the article on why men are oppressed, or the constant posting of articles explaining why men are oppressed by the cretin? She thinks men are oppressed because they are men. And no most of the stuff that the Men’s society is trying to do, and what she wants them to do is not hippy tea drinking, the stuff about men not being given the benefit of the doubt in claims of rape gives away what she and the group is about. Wouldn’t you agree. Maybe less rapists should be convicted as men should be given the benefit of the doubt. It is just sick that anyone could believe such a thing. Everyone else can see this, except you. As I wrote above, if any of my friends liked Goebells or thought “Israel is awesome” or wanted to allow men to force women to have children they would not be my friends any more, I would not just be having strong words with them.
The first public thing you have to say on this issue is against an article defending the position of our group and the wider left we have worked with on this. How do you think people see that Robbie?
The editorship of the paper is mostly fantastic, in every paper, especially one that has few resources like the WW, errors will no doubt be evident. However, any errors will be fixed and if needed we will say when we have got things wrong. This is a non-issue, the question at hand, which you have little to say on is what these groups represent not just on campus, but as part of a wider attack against the women’s movement and the gains that have been made in recent decades.
I personally am fairly upset that although Robbie has not said anything against the Men’s Society threatening the women’s movement at Manchester University (not even a token facebook comment on the group campaigning against it), he can devote such energies to defending a blatant right-winger with some of the most repugnant views I’ve ever heard.
Robbie… Please get arguing with us, not against us!
What a load of crap. Rich and poor men suffer equally from the lack of interest, screening and research that goes into male specific cancers.
You’ve conveniently ignored the main area in which men are oppressed which is of course at home in their family lives. We live in a society when children are regarded as the property of the mother and where dads are no more than a pay cheque. We have quite superb fathers denied any access to their children, with such people thrown in jail just for waving at their own kids! I suppose the super rich can hire some brilliant lawyer to avoid being denied access completely but it’s a million times more about gender than it is wealth.
Similarly sexist domestic violence laws impact on all men – the police often arrest the male victim and always believe the female regardless of the facts and and again regardless of income. All teh domestic violence “charities” refuse to help men – not just poor men but ALL men.
There really is little sense in any of your arguments. Yes there are a lot of working class boys being failed by the education system, but the fact is the whole system is stacked against males and there are plenty of other boys suffering too.
The main role class and income play is in compounding whatever inequalites exist for the male population as a whole due to it beoing combined with the other issue such a group faces.
Girls results are constantly going up, even working class girls. Far from suffering they benefit from the sexist feminised education system thus increasing the inequality further. Their results don’t suffer significantly due to lack of male teachers.
We live in a throughly misandric society – where women’s violence against men is something comical and commendable. Where all fathers are portrayed and treated as either redundant, violent and above all else useless, (and women the exact opposite). We have ministers in the government openly announcing sexist policies and policy and blaming all the world’s woes on men (whilst simulatanously having an intense focus on the achievements of women).
Please wake up, you’re all so stuck in the 1970s at best. The world has changed – you’re just so unbelievably out of touch with reality. The Labour Party and the Communists remind me of the Tories 20 years ago – hateful, nasty, out of touch dinosaurs with absolutely nothing to offer.
Do you actually believe this stuff? “Sexist feminised education system?” I’ve been to four schools in my time, and I can safely say that I did not recieve a feminist education, biased in favour of women- especially since 3 of them were church schools.
Also, men are not oppressed in the family. The nuclear family is a bastian of the patriarchal system in which we live- even now many people see the main role of women as being in the home! In many ways, the fact that women are more than likely to be given custody of children (which is not a certainty anyway, and thats from personal experience) is a symptom of the gender role forced on women- that of mother and homemaker- and the image of women as the softer sex.
Domestic abuse charities focus on the domestic abuse that women face. Not that shocking really, considering the overwhelming majority of sufferers of domestic violence are women, and even then domestic violence is rarely reported.
In no way do we live in a misandric society! Men suffer domestic abuse and rape, indeed, but as I said the majority is focused at women. For a reason- we live in a mysoginistic society! Women are systematically oppressed because of their sex- are men? No. Most men do suffer oppression- along class, not sex lines.
I love the fact that all these pro-Men’s Society people are holding up government ministers and the likes of Harriet flippin Harman as radical feminists leading the great charge against men. It is true the likes of her do not represent the majority of men, nor does she represent the majority of women.
It is you douglous who is out of touch with reality. If you did open your eyes you would see that the advances that women have made as a sex since the 1970s are very limited indeed; and are actually coming under attack. You hold up all the anti-men policies, what about the attempts to role back abortion rights for women? If we lived in a pro-woman world, why would that happen?
All your comments lead back to one thing- mysoginy; you seem absolutely petrified that women are actually making advances towards legal equality- something they are still far from. What the rise of your men’s groups actually represent is a concerted attempt to not only roll back these rights, but to paint every feminist and person fighting for womens equality as man-haters and advocates of matriarachy. We aren’t.
*gasp* I condemned the Men’s Society! Perhaps it’s a Christmas miracle ;-0