[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he undeclared war on men has just dialled the hatred up, again. This time, it’s not merely men’s behavior and bad attitudes under attack, but male biology which is the root of evil.
You see gentlemen, you are not merely stupid, misguided, culturally stunted reprobates. You’re biologically flawed, innately broken bad-people. So says Margaret Wente, whose journalism and english literature degrees make her an “expert” on human biology and male psychology. (not really)
Wente’s recent article on the Canadian national news site theglobeandmail.com decries the recent increased availability of hormone replacement therapies for aging men. In a population of aging baby boomers – parallel treatments for women have been widely promoted for more than a decade – but obviously, when men are the target demographic for hormone based aging treatments, its a very very bad thing. After all, everybody knows testosterone is the source of all greed and violence in the world.
Everybody knows this, with the exception of those who actually study it[1]. The conclusions of actual research on the impact of testosterone on human behavior indicates “Testosterone doesn’t cause people to become aggressive or risky as many people believe but actually encourages fairness”. [2]
However, Margaret Wente isn’t letting inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story. In the world of commonly believed falsehood, testosterone is the core of male identity. That means violence and aggression is the core of masculinity, at least, according to Wente, whose journalism and literature degree makes her an obvious expert in behavioural psychology.
Starting from a foundation built on cultural myth, Wente builds a case for the innate biological inferiority of the sex whose energy, creativity and drive have levered humanity into our modern, clean, well fed civilization.
Wente continues her attack on masculinity with the bland declaration that “testosterone is implicated in the world’s financial woes.” As a subscriber to several financial newsletters, this is new on me, but I wont dispute that maleness is implicated in all the world’s woes by ideologues re-packaging cultural biases under the false pretence that hatred is backed up by data. According to our expert on matters masculine and economic:
“Perhaps you’ve noticed that not a single woman was involved with the reckless speculation that led to the debacle of 2008.” Being male, and therefore, inferior – I hadn’t noticed that no women at all work in the service sectors of finance and banking, but now I know – It was all because of testosterone.
Unsatisfied with her own professional expertise on masculine psychology and sexual biology, Wente relies on a former investment banker to deliver the knowledge that “Testosterone is the molecule that explains irrational exuberance”. Hysterical female Justin Bieber fans are clearly suffering from testosterone poisoning.
Dear lord, somebody help them!
Wente concludes her piece with a quote from a white knight author of yet another best-selling “women are better than men” book. “Women have only 10 per cent of the testosterone that men have. But they probably have 210 per cent of the judgment.”
What’s interesting in the weak pseudo-science behind this article’s hate is that it focuses almost entirely on biology to vilify masculine identity. There is none of the: “you bad men would be better with some re-education” – which I’m paraphrasing from other men-are-bad feminist agitprop.
Wendy Zukerman’s New-Scientist piece on the evolutionary roots of domestic violence[3] is explicit in excluding consideration of female offenders. Zuckerman opens with some reasonable concerns that her cited researchers at University of Texas in Austin and Stockton College of New Jersey makes simplistic assumptions. However, in the following paragraph notes only the number of female reports of domestic violence – a large number with no comparison or context.
Another men-are-bad article on the Huffington Post by prostrate male feminist David Katz makes a more oblique , but equally vacuous swipe at biology as the source of masculine evil. His article can be found by googling “The Biological Basis for Behaving Badly.” A bold bit of alliteration by Katz, but the biological approach to claiming man-equals-bad has an interesting tactical component. Within civil rights movements, claims by racist organizations of biological inferiority, or superiority between ethnic demographics are among the most egregious approaches to demonizing a population, because if the idea gains currency – it suggests a biological solution.
This is how ethnic cleansing becomes palatable within a society; the idea that large scale sterilization, medical intervention, internment or extermination is actually a merciful act to the group targeted. Or simply that the targeted demographic is believed to be “not really human” and therefore, outside the consideration of human rights questions.
In 1996 Gregory H. Stanton prepared a document for the US State Department called The 8 Stages of Genocide[4].
In the document’s introduction, Stanton stated :
“Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process. “
Stanton’s outline difers in it’s scope from the phenomenon of cultural misandry. In his paper, he focused on rising hatred within an individual society; within the context of the global community not following the path described. This differs from the escalating hatred of men in that the ideology of male hatred has growing dominance around the world, and is not limited to a small set of nation states or region.
Stanton’s identified stages are Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination, and Denial.
The trend towards male vilification as a product of natural biology – as typified by recent writing by Wente and Katz suggests our culture is in stage 3, which is Dehumanization. Biological solutions to the claimed biological evil of masculinity can be speculated, including legally mandated drugging, chemical sterilization, or tracking through RFID technologies.
At this point, I expect skeptical readers to speculate that my aluminum foil hat is too tight, and that is a reasonable reaction. Which is why I will mention the fact that ideological feminism is a non-local movement with currency in all western nations. In India[5] and Indonesia[6] – commuter trains have reserved cars for women only, but no such trains for men only. In fact, men who accidentally enter these reserved spaces are ritually humiliated and beaten in public. One man was thrown by guards[7] from a moving train sustaining life threatening injuries. This is unquestionably apartheid, exactly the same phenomena which international humanitarian organizations fought against for a decade prior to South Africa ending the practice in 1994. A law is presently proposed under which Indian wives will be paid by the government to beat their husbands[8] in public, with the payment escalating depending on the severity of the beating.
In Turkey, men are barred from attending soccer matches[9]. Rather than international protest at this new manifestation of apartheid, “humanitarian” organizations are cheering. If the argument that the majority of unruly spectators are men is a valid justification, why not stop child abuse by barring mothers from child-care.
Far from doing anything so egregious. The statistics showing female relatives as the principal perpetrators of child abuse in the 2008 Department of health and Human Services report on child maltreatment were removed from the Health and Human Services website[10]. The updated report for 2009 shows the same data re-classified identifying the relationship of victim to abuser as simply “Parent.” Elsewhere in the 2009 report victim relationship to abuser is included, although this table lists “Father” at the top of the table, while data indicates mothers as the principal offenders.
However, nobody is calling for the banning of mothers from contact with their children. Because it would be as absurd as banning man from attending soccer matches based solely on sexual profiling.
In England, the labour national labour party ran an all-party convention which expressly forbade men from attending. This too is unquestionably apartheid. In the UK, a proposed change to law would render prison for female offenders a relic of the past, replaced with state funded housing, education and therapy. In Canada – female murderers, when convicted are mandated by the provincial court of Ontario to be charged under the lesser crime of infanticide. When women are found guilty in criminal courts, they are given lesser sentences through informal favour in the courts, but this is increasingly being formalized. One reading of the law for women, another for men. The modern word privilege has its origin in the latin phrase meaning; private law for or against a specific person.
In Stanton’s catalog, which he prepared on behalf of US Congress to assist in the avoidance of mass killings in failed states, the step after Dehumanization is Organization. From Stanton’s document, “Genocide is always organized, usually by the state”.
Where are we on Gregory H. Stanton’s 8 step program? The author himself asserted that the stages are not strictly linear, and we’re also observing a phenomenon transcending national and regional boundaries. Does the tin-foil hat still fit?
One of the difficulties in writing about this phenomenon is the temptation to comparison with a specific european nation’s social transformation between the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century. Id suggest that while there are some similarities the present trend of masculine disenfranchisement has a different character. In particular, this is a world-wide phenomena, and is not occurring in a single region relatively isolated from a (relatively) sane world community. The other major difference being that cooperation and adherence to male despising ideology must continue to encompass most men for escalated apartheid to continue.
Cracks in the foundation are already appearing. The increasing mainstream adoption of men’s rights rhetoric is one such crack. The marriage strike is another noticeable sign of times changing in western nations, and the startling and game changing emergence of Japan’s version of zeta masculinity – the “ soushoku danshi” – or grass eating boys.
Western media paints these men opting out of traditional expectations as if they’re weak, but I read it differently. They’re Going Their Own Way, and giving not a single toss for anyone’s opinion. That sounds like strength to me. They’re also becoming the dominant model for masculinity in Japan, with 60% of men between 20 and 30 years old self identifying as “grass eating boys.”
This is disastrous for economies which depend on male competition for wealth, status and female access. It may – if it continues to grow – lead to the collapse of nation states. If that happens, big box feminism, which depends on chivalry and on state funding and enforcement – will collapse as well.
Western media has continued to characterize the trend of male self actualization of men unplugging from traditional “provide- protect-disposable-man” as a failure. Hymowitz’s Child Man in the Promised Land and Kimmel’s Guyland being prime examples of attempts to induce compliance with male disposability through public derision.
Sadly, for Kimmel and Hymowitz – men stepping off the treadmill are not merely the failed competitors detractors pretend, they’re men who’ve evaluated the available options for acceptable masculinity and have selected “none of the above.” Shaming based on conformance to a model of male disposability does not work on men who value themselves as humans.
In Japan, Grass Eaters are indifferent to attempts to force compliance by ridicule, and a healthier attitude is hard to contemplate. This is close to what practicing Buddhists pursue as a state of grace – un-attachment. In the decidedly non Buddhist West however, an increasing population of men adopting a zeta definition of self might be considerably less tolerant of the increasingly shrill mainstream’s effort to extract money, and force compliance. I predict it will be an interesting time.
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7279/full/nature08711.html
[2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2009/12/08/tech-biology-testosterone-behaviour.html
[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20976-domestic-violence-gets-evolutionary-explanation.html
[4] http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/8stagesofgenocide.html
[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8165976/Men-caught-in-women-only-train-carriage-forced-to-do-sit-ups.html
[6] http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/08/28/womenonly-train-service.html
[7] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-12-15/kolkata/28244162_1_constable-ladies-compartment-train
[8] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/193470/pati-patni-ten-thousand.html
[9] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/men-banned-from-turkey-soccer-grounds-in-bid-to-stop-violence/story-e6frg7mf-1226142614442
[10] http://www.avoiceformen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/09/cm08.pdf
