Toward a ‘Gender Transition Movement’ (GTM)

The following is a Wiki4Men entry describing Warren Farrell’s proposed ‘Gender Transition Movement.’

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Warren Farrell, author of The Myth of Male Power, advocates a “gender transition movement” which refers to more role-sharing among men and women than has traditionally been the case. Farrell proposes, for example, that women may wish to contribute more labor and more income so that “neither sex is expected to pay more than half the income,”¹ and men may wish to spend more time with family so that “both sexes raise the children.” ^2,3

Farrell states, “Taking what had worked for most women traditionally and seeing it as a plot against them led us to see men as “owing” women. This created Stage II entitlement: women being entitled to compensation for past oppression. This prevented us from seeing the need to make a transition from Stage I to Stage II together : the need not for a women’s movement or a men’s movement, but for a gender transition movement.” ⁴

He further states, “A gender transition movement will be the longest of all movements because it is not proposing merely to integrate blacks or Latinos into a system that already exists; rather, it is proposing an evolutionary shift in the system itself—an end to “woman-the-protected” and “man-the-protector.”⁵

Farrell breaks down his proposed gender transition movement into stages of a grand historical process, which can be described as follows:

• 1. Historically men and women adhered to strict gender roles for the sake of survival.
• 2. Women chose to “liberate” themselves from that role to gain more freedom.
• 3. Men have responded women’s “liberation” by proposing they too might be liberated from some traditional gender roles.
• 4. Ideally this unfolding process can culminate in a gender liberation movement for both sexes.⁶

References:

1. The Myth of Male Power
2. The Myth of Male Power
3. Warren Farrell, Toward A Gender Transition Movement, in Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?
4. The Myth of Male Power
5. Warren Farrell, Toward A Gender Transition Movement, in Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?
6. The Myth of Male Power