Forks in the Road of Men’s Gender Politics: Men’s Rights vs Feminist Allies

Michael A Messner

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i2.301

Abstract

How do men respond to feminist movements and to shifts in the gender order? In this paper, I introduce the concept of historical gender formation to show how shifting social conditions over the past forty years shaped a range of men’s organized responses to feminism. Focusing on the US, I show how progressive men reacted to feminism in the 1970s by forming an internally contradictory ‘men’s liberation’ movement that soon split into opposing anti-feminist and pro-feminist factions. Three large transformations of the 1980s and 1990s – the professional institutionalization of feminism, the rise of a postfeminist sensibility, and shifts in the political economy (especially deindustrialization and the rise of the neoliberal state) – generated new possibilities. I end by pointing to an emergent moderate men’s rights discourse that appeals to a postfeminist sensibility, and to an increasingly diverse base for men’s work to prevent violence against women.

Highlights

For more than a century, men in have responded to feminist movements in the US and in other western jurisdictions in varying ways, ranging from outright hostility, to sarcastic ridicule, to indifference, to grudging sympathy, to enthusiastic support (Kimmel 1987; Messner 1997)
In this article I argue that large‐scale social changes – those shaped by social movements, changing cultural beliefs, and shifts in political economy – create moments of historical gender formation that in turn shape, constrain and enable certain forms of men’s gender politics
In this article I have argued that large‐scale changes created by social movements and shifts in political economy generate moments of historical gender formation that in turn shape, constrain and enable certain forms of men’s gender politics

Summary

Introduction

For more than a century, men in have responded to feminist movements in the US and in other western jurisdictions in varying ways, ranging from outright hostility, to sarcastic ridicule, to indifference, to grudging sympathy, to enthusiastic support (Kimmel 1987; Messner 1997). The social change corollary to this was the assertion that, when men committed themselves to bringing about full equality for women, this would create the conditions for the full humanization of men, including healthier and longer lives and more satisfying relationships with intimate partners, friends, and children It did not take long before serious slippage began to occur with men’s liberationists’ attempts to navigate the tension between emphasizing men’s privileges and the costs of masculinity. Less politically progressive leaders began to assert a false symmetry, viewing men and women as differently but oppressed by sex roles (Farrell 1974; Goldberg 1976). The beating heart of the men’s rights movement has been organizations that focus – largely through the Internet – on fighting for fathers’ rights, especially in legal cases involving divorce and child custody (Dragiewicz 2008; Menzies 2007)

Shifting gender formations

Professionally institutionalized feminism

Men and gender politics today

Conclusion