How gender and men are discussed in academia

[thescuspeaks.livejournal.com]

Have you ever noticed how when people talk about gender they
really are using gender as a euphemism for talking about women? So if you were to read a report entitled, “The effects of war in Afghanistan and gender” you’d really be really be reading a report about war and women. If you want
to talk about gender besides women it has to be snuck in the backdoor, guerilla style academic insurrection tactics. I have hijacked more then my fair share of classes. The problem of using gender as a euphemism for women is two fold: (1) It continues the idea that women qua women is not worth talking about. (2) It lessens analysis. It produces sloppy lazy answers to complex questions, and perhaps worse, fails to ask a whole host of questions that need answers.
Even when masculinity is discussed, there is a peculiar bent to the discussion. Masculinity seems to only be talked about in the ways that it relates to men’s feelings towards women. As way of example, I went to this conference on popular culture, and there was a panel discussing “Masculinity and Maxim”, so I naturally went. All the papers were focused on the same (true) thing, that Maxim constructed male sexuality in order to women as objects. The odd thing that was missing was what Maxim does to men. The whole point of Maxim is to make men feel like shit. The articles of Maxim follow a fairly similar format, in which the article basically goes: “You’re an stupid, insensitive jerk. Because you are such a loser, no girl will go out with you as you are, so we will teach you how to be something besides your loser self in order for women to like you.” At this point the man is instructed on how to do things, how to engage in certain psychic cosmetic surgeries. The man’s personality is tooled to an interchangeable object, a commodity, in which one engages women as if they are objects to be traded. (Cosmo works in a very similar way. Women are taught they are just objects, and that men are stupid insensitive jerks. Therefore, the only way to be happy is by staying in the realm of objectness). Both of these magazines use these techniques for two reasons: (1) In order to sell the products they advertise. In both cases these magazines want the readers to feel that objects can be a key to their happiness. And (2) they want to sell an image to which reading and buying the magazine is key to keeping. The first thing that all these magazines have to do is to make the target
reader (either male or female) feel sufficiently insufficient. (And none of this analysis even taps the heterosexual matrix [to steal a term from Wittiq] that undergirds all of this). Analysis of gender has to be more complex, more full, then what we usually find in theory land.

Comments

[trooper6.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've noticed that gender==women. Which is annoying. Sometimes I want to talk about women, and sometimes I want to talk about gender (I tend to do a lot of gender theory, so I hate false advertising).

But I have to disagree that masculine==men's reaction to women. Often I find masculinity==men, in general, which is also really annoying, because masculinity exists also in women (see Judith Halberstam's Female Masculinity) and there are men that are feminine.

If we are talking about men, then we should call it men's studies. If we are talking about women, then we should call it women's studies. If we are doing femininity or masculinity, then we should do that...but we should recognize that masculinity/femininity exist on a continuum that is not always equated with male/female...and that it varies in its construction/presentation by race/class/age/sexuality/gender/nationality, etc. (I also to a lot of interrogation of various historical masculinities of all types).

I just wish we'd stop euphamisming and just say what we mean!

But I think that things are chaning. At least things were I'm reading. I've just submitted an abstract to a book anthology on Popular Music and Masculinity, and they are open to masculinity in different guises (including female masculinity, masculinites filtered by race, etc). There was also the anthology, Sexing the Groove--Gender and Popular Music that also discussed male genders (Rolling Stones, Take That) though it leaned heavily towards female genders.

I think that lots of theory has been unuseful for lots of people for lots of different reasons...mainly though, because we are a new generation of thinkers. But we are now beginning to write and put our own theories out there. Things are changing...we just have to make it change.

[lebanez17.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with trooper, but I also want to make a note on the goal of the publications you mentioned. You say they hope to make people feel adequately insufficient. I'm afraid that's the way things have to be, at least in this society. Tell the poor man he's not rich enough, and he'll aspire to riches. Tell the ugly girl she has to be beautiful to make it in this world, she'll strive for that too. Or, if they don't strive, they'll accept the fact that they can 'never be as good as...' which is just as bad. Either way, the tactic is effective, because it supports a strong hamster-wheel of imperfection. When imperfection exists- and is properly exploited- people will leap through hoops to correct them. This stirs the economy into the wonderful system we proudly call capitalism. *spats*

But that's beside the point, I guess. You're both right in that terminology is horribly incorrect. I don't know if it's more euphamising or if it's just incorrect. I think a lot of people just don't know the accurate terminology- they're spitting words out there that sound right or will sell papers. People just aren't aware of the correct terms... but with more writing and more studying, hopefully soon that will change. The more we put it out there, the faster the change will occur.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Certain christian groups will condemn 'Commercialism' along much the same lines. We do not need a feeding frenzy cetred round a few overpriced commodities. A lot of people work in clothes without going to the ridiculous lengths surrounding ' high fashion', but they don't become obscenely rich, I notice...

[killerjoe.livejournal.com]

I have also noticed the idea that the title "gender" largely means "women." If we can find a gentle way of massaging the word back to a gender nuetrality we should try to do so.