When stand-up comedian Stu Silverstein recently encountered a feminist in a club in San Francisco, she requested not to be called a woman or a female because those titles have “man” and “male” in them.
“What should I call you?” Stu asked.
“I’m a gyno-American,” she replied.
“Then what does that make me?” he said.
“You’re a testosterone-poison-humanoid,” she said.
The encounter underlines a taste of the resentment toward men that is sometimes attributed to some feminists. Most feminists, however, are not vengeful commandos seething with misandry. Perhaps it becomes easier to understand how anger develops when one considers the glass ceiling and wage disparities between men and women, or the striking amount of sexual assault, harassment and violence committed against women.
There has been recent criticism of the feminist groups at UCSD for the supposed goal of masking domestic violence against men, specifically with respect to the April 15 event “Take Back the Night,” a collection of readings and speeches highlighting rape, violence and sexual assault against women.
While domestic violence against men needs to be recognized and decried, criticizing UCSD organizations like the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and the A.S. Women’s Commission for focusing on violence committed against women is ridiculous. These are women’s groups and their primary focus is on womens’ issues. Would anyone expect the College Republicans to promote the events of the College Democrats? This is not to imply that the interests of men and women are diametrically opposed (nor those of Democrats and Republicans). Violence against women is specifically highlighted because the implications are greater.
There is a myth of “mutuality” based on studies that report that men and women use physical violence at equal rates in intimate relationships. This fails to consider the type of violence and the amount of fear and injury experienced by each party. A September 2002 American Journal of Public Health article reports that women who are victims of domestic violence are much more likely to be injured — and injured severely — than are men, and that women experience higher levels of fear than men in such situations. These issues need to be explored on college campuses, especially considering that women in the age bracket of 16 to 24 are most likely to be victimized by an intimate partner, according to a 2002 report by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Even with domestic violence aside, what about rape? While men and boys are also victims of sexual assault, the majority of sexual assault victims, hands down, are female. Women are nearly seven times more likely to be victimized than men are, according to the Justice Department report. The same study also reported a dramatic increase in the willingness to report rape and significant decline in overall sexual assault and rapes since 1993.
Perhaps such a decline can be credited to events such as “Take Back the Night,” which raise awareness about sexual assault, violence against women, and the need for gender equality. Raising awareness may seem unnecessary to many — everyone “knows” about the issues. It should not be assumed that everyone knows the issues.
The feminist movement is relatively fresh, historically speaking. Some women from the generation that fought for women’s suffrage are still alive. Even at UCSD, the FMLA has only been around since 2001. “Take Back the Night” is also only three years old, but has established a forum where these issues can be discussed and where creative response and experiences are shared. To ignore the male end of gender issues is not right, but a strictly feminist perspective is better than no perspectives at all, considering that the perspectives of women were irrelevant or at best on the backburner for a long time. The more viewpoints and issues brought to the table, the better.
The feminist groups on campus serve a good and worthy purpose. Over two-thirds of young women in United States self-identify as feminists. These are women who can make use of the A.S. Women’s Commission’s assertiveness workshops or march for breast cancer with the FMLA. These are women who can make use of the many services offered at the Women’s Center, which is receptive to gender issues “affecting women and men of diverse backgrounds and experiences,” according to their Web site.
Through these groups, women and men can be connected to a network of people concerned with many different issues: reproductive rights; promoting the role of women in sports, politics, sciences; and women’s rights in countries such as Afghanistan. For first-generation students and students from countries where women are mistreated, the mere existence of these groups is paramount, let alone the opportunities they provide.
If any men feel that gender issues relating to them need to be given the spotlight too, by all means, they can declare themselves “feMANists” and start a new student organization.
