So This Is Life?

12/10
2009

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Homosociality

katoleary:

shorterexcerpts:

lickystickypickyme:

Homosociality (as explained so well in Michael Kimmel’s Manhood in America) is the principle that all men are raised in our culture to be more eager to please other men than women.

One of the most significant difficulties (and opportunities) about pro-feminist men’s work is that it challenges homosocial norms. Pro-feminist men are often characterized as “wimps” — soft, gentle men with submissive natures.

In most contemporary Western cultures, there is a strong code that declares that men don’t criticize their fellows’ attitudes towards women and gender. Given the intense desire for male approval that most young men have, it scarcely seems likely that many will feel comfortable taking feminist positions in all-male environments!

When I was an undergraduate, I quickly mastered the “talk” of feminism. In my classes, and around female friends, I was, if not a model of egalitarianism, a thoughtful, polite, and intelligent critic of gender roles and the patriarchy. But get me alone with my male friends (especially with a beer or two in me) and I spewed the same objectifying garbage that they did. There were many reasons for this. First off, I was deeply ambivalent about feminism as a younger man. Being alone with the guys gave me a chance to “blow off steam”; indeed, the more I tried to match my words, actions, and politics in mixed groups, the more I felt the overwhelming need to act boorishly around the guys when we were alone together. Second of all, I was desperate for male approval.

In college, most of the guys I hung out with lived in my co-op; they were all pre-law or engineering types. None were liberal arts majors, much less interested in taking women’s studies classes! I knew that to criticize their words and actions would be to lose their companionship — and at that stage of my life, the craving for companionship won out over my ethics, hands down. Indeed, I often made fun of the very material I was studying, as if to reassure my companions that I didn’t take it too seriously, and thus could be trusted to remain one of the guys.

This kind of double life left me feeling ashamed and fraudulent.

complete article here