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Well, if he's leading anything he's sure doing it incognito. But of course the msg is years old. And probably somebody else was using the term,'masculism,' long before the '90s.
Oh, well...I thought I invented nachos in the '70s before I moved to AZ. But I never claimed to be the leader of the Tex-Mex snack movement! ;>)
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This guy's claim is bunk according to my favorite reference source, bartleby.com. According to this page:
http://www.bartleby.com/66/68/15868.html
The term masculist has been used as far back as 1971, a full 20 years prior to Daly's claim of coinage. The term was coined to grammatically correlate to feminist.
Anyone else ever heard of this Daly guy before?
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Anyone else ever heard of this Daly guy before?
Mary Daly's husband, perhaps?
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This is probably as good a place as any to mention this. I'd like to hear what you men (and women) think.
I confess that I've got a problem with the term 'masculism.' If masculism is to men as feminism is to women, then this is not something we want to pursue.
I believe in equal treatment, opportunity and responsibility for all, so it's certainly not something *I* would want to be associated with.
I certainly hope that we, as a 'movement,' are not going to become the masculine mirror image of feminism. We are not looking for special privileges for men, nor are we striving to promote hatred against women. We are striving to *stop* this kind of evil.
If a 'masculist' is the male equivalent of a 'feminist,' then I'll most assuredly never call myself one.
Feminism has become one of the greatest evils on the planet, we must be vigilant that we do not re-create that evil in our image.
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I certainly hope that we, as a 'movement,' are not going to become the masculine mirror image of feminism. We are not looking for special privileges for men, nor are we striving to promote hatred against women. We are striving to *stop* this kind of evil.
This is a valid concern often expressed by the likes of Cathy Young. What I believe masculism to be is a philosophy of equal treatment under the law (a phrasing I adopted from Wendy McElroy's ifeminism). It's not about victimhood or special privelege for men, but it is about calling attention to inequalities in the law which are detrimental to men.
Young likes to believe that the men's movement is about whining, and I think that comes largely from the fallacy that masculism is just a men's version of feminist victimology.
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"Young likes to believe that the men's movement is about whining, and I think that comes largely from the fallacy that masculism is just a men's version of feminist victimology."
Too true pal. And who are the biggest whiners of all? feminists in general. She should look in the mirror.
I-FEMS not included, since I'm a nice guy :)
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"Humanist" works for me, and ifems truly do seem to want equality, as opposed to equity as Nightmist has pointed out. (But that damn word, "feminist," still makes me sick.)
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This is a valid concern often expressed by the likes of Cathy Young.
Last I corresponded with Cathy (late '98) she said she still called herself a feminist. That being the case I hardly see how she can object to men calling themselves "masculists".
Personally I don't like the word much, if only because it lops a syllable too many from masculine. Apparently the word "masculinism" is used in the gay movement and that scares some in the men's movement. Personally I'm not bothered by gays.
As I have stated elsewhere, the most natural of interpretation of the word "feminist" is "partisan of the female cause". Mutatis mutandis for masculism.
That doesn't imply a quest for special privileges or a desire to oppress the other; that depends on where you're starting from. If *you* are the oppressed one then gaining equality is advancing your cause. If you're already privileged, well...
sd
Those who like this sort of thing
will find this the sort of thing they like.
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How right you are Ragtime. I generally prefer to call myself an "egalitarian," to emphasize the fundamental differences between my own means and goals and the means and goals of the vile thing known as "feminism."
As for the term, "masculist," I have a few problems with it just as a word. First of all, it was, to the best of my understanding and as Nightmist points out, "coined to grammatically correlate to feminist. Why the hell should men base the name their movement on the name of a hate-movement? Besides, "masculist" sounds too much like "emasculate" for my tastes. I prefer the less often used word, "masculinist," because it clearly differs in structure from the repugnant word "feminist," and because it contains the full, noble word "masculin(e)."
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Harumph! So much for my MS Word grammar check. That should, of course, be "the name *of* their movement"...
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by Anonymous User on Thursday January 10, @01:19PM EST (#14)
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I support "masculism" as defined by the Oxford Companion to Philosophy as "the belief that men have been systematically discriminated against, and that that discriminatin should be eliminated." This definition is non-political and it does not necessarily conflict with the theoretical feminist premise that women have been discriminated against. The definition is silent about whether women have been oppressed and to what extent they have been. Masculists can disagree about that among themselves. Just as "feminists" can about men being discriminated against. Warren Farrell himself says he is either a masculist or a feminist insofar as either theory believes in equal rights between the sexes. We shoud not dismiss "masculism" by comparing it to *gender* feminism. There already are people in the masculist movement who I would consider "gender masculists." But they don't define "masculism" per se.
I also support Oxford's definition because, unlike Daly's, it is silent about what the approach should be to end the discrimination (more government, less government, etc.), and thus allows for masculism to fit on any point of the political spectrum.
Daly not only sounds childish and self-centered ('It is *I* who invented masculism!'), but he also gives the term a political slant, like when he says, "It celebrates white, heterosexual men . . ." This is his own narrow and politically-bent definition, and I think he hurts the masculist movement by defining it that way. It is one thing for him to take a right or left wing approach to masculism. It is another to *define* masculism only within his own political framework. And since many people still haven't even heard of masculism, doing this can be very damaging to the term.
There is no logical inconsistency between being a masculist and also being a gay rights activist, a born-again Christian, a communist, a John Bircher, or a libertarian.
No doubt the masculist movement will divide up more in the future along political lines. But we will shoot our own movement in the foot if we don't at least respect each other's different approaches and acknowledge that the core premise of masculism does not slant in any political direction.
Marc
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As for the term, "masculist," I have a few problems with it just as a word. First of all, it was, to the best of my understanding and as Nightmist points out, "coined to grammatically correlate to feminist. Why the hell should men base the name their movement on the name of a hate-movement?
When they say "gramatically correlate," I'm not sure they mean "similar but for the opposite sex," though. Searching through Google, there are some feminist dictionaries from the 1970s which define "masculist" as "male chauvanist pig." So perhaps we should wear the label with pride because feminists hate it? :)
In any event, I see your point about how masculinist contains the full masculine, but I always felt that it was actually closer to feminist than masculist was. feminist contains the full feminine in exactly the same way masculinist contains masculine.
masculist on the other hand, avoids the complexity of pronunciation created by the -inist of both feminist and masculinist.
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I always felt that it was actually closer to "feminist" than "masculist" was. "feminist" contains the full "feminine" in exactly the same way "masculinist" contains "masculine."
Hmmm. Not to get into a heated debate about it, but it seems to me that the grammatical equivalent to "masculinist" would be "femininist," which contains the full "feminin(e)." "feminist" contains only "femin." "femininist" contains the whole "feminine."
femin/feminist mascul/masculist
feminine/femininist masculine/masculinist
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I generally prefer to call myself an "egalitarian," to emphasize the fundamental differences between my own means and goals and the means and goals of the vile thing known as "feminism."
That's not bad at all, Thomas -- a label I could repect.
The one I use most often to describe my outlook is "humanist," as in being humane and promoting humanity. It doesn't promote one group above any other, and also doesn't leave anyone out.
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I understand what you are trying to do with the term "humanist," just be aware it is more popularly a term for a religious (or you could call it non-religious) philosophy.
David S.
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I find 'andronist' interesting, but almost too clinical sounding. I think some of the other posts that refer to letting our actions define us rather than a term could land us in better standing together, unless the general phrase "mens movement" was the umbrella for all the little variant words. One thing that is suprememly important that a term as simple as mens movement almost implies, is brotherhood. I see it talked about, or bring it up myself in various lists, but THAT is the glue to the whole thing. If the femnaz saw that going on in the mens movement, it would scare the livin' crap out of them, because there would be no way to resist it. A brotherhood cannot be attacked and divided like an organization can. Those of you that have real brothers know what I mean.
Plus, movement pretty much sums up what we are doing, ...moving towards being heard again, being considered equally as important in the game plan as anyone else when it comes to social policy, i.e., legal choice for men, not being shut out by affirmitave action, (even among ourselves by race, let the qualifications speak for themselves), parental custody to fathers with mothers getting visitation, as well as social programs that actually help men get back on thier feet from 30 years of s*&t thrown at them, which we allowed out of false sense of chivalry (I really hope that form of social engineering of men is dead forever!.) The bloke that put that webpage up started out the wrong way to begin with. If we are more concerned with how much individual credit we will get by being the male equivalant of elenor smeal, or ireland, (or whoever the hell ya wanna put in the blank for NOW prez). If we can actually aquire the aforementioned things before the post-X gens come of age, at least our sons and daughters will have the kinds of relationships AND opportunities we only wish for.
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This is actually a discussion that I've been interested in having for some time. Perhaps, as a writer, words are more important to me than they are to the average person.
In any case, while words and titles carry weight, our actions are certainly more important than what we call ourselves.
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I've used the term 'masculinist' several times in posts (mainly to avoid the clunkiness of 'men's activist'), but I'll agree that it's a sexist term just as is the term 'feminist'. On the one hand, either term could simply mean being a proponent of masculinity or femininity. However - as I stated in a much earlier post - any advocacy toward a particular demographic group usually implies that this group has been oppressed, stigmatized or underappreciated in some way - with little or no such treatment going toward the "opposite" group (on the contary, it is in favor of the opposite group that the first group is so subjugated).
Masculinity and maleness are, to varying degrees, oppressed, stigmatized and underappreciated in today's culture. But I know that they have not always been - and certainly not uniquely. Women and femininity have also been oppressed, stigmatized and underappreciated at various points during our history, and continue to be in certain areas of the world. There was a time when I bought into the thinking that feminism was founded on nothing but lies, that women were never oppressed and yadda-yadda. I don't believe this anymore, though. Feminism has largely become corrupt, but that doesn't mean that its basic premise is wrong.
I agree with feminists that women have been pretty severely put down formally. That is, whatever suffering men may have uniquely endured due to social custom, much of it has not been foisted on men in the explicit form of a punishment (i.e., the explicit explanation given is that men should suffer in this way because they are wretched and they deserve it). However, this has been the case for much of what has been foisted on women (i.e., women can't vote because they're intellectually inferior, etc.)
So, my basic feeling is that the women's movement is justified in pursuing reparations for the ways in which women have been oppressed and insulted formally and explicitly, whereas the men's movement should be aimed at addressing the menagerie of ways in which the status quo which claims to "privilege" men actually does great harm to us on the sly. I believe that misandry has always lurked beneath misogyny - and while I don't mean to echo the sentiments of Bob "Eve's Seed" McElvaine, I do think that a deep-seated contempt for men, and an overall lack of genuine security in male goodness, has lain beneath much of the seemingly misogynist ideology throughout history. I think the men's movement's primary goal should be to address and eliminate this unspoken hatred.
And, of course - there's also the need to repair the contemporary damage that has been wrought by corrupt feminism itself.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday January 10, @08:55PM EST (#22)
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*SPUTTERS*
*GASPS*
Who is this imposter?! Doesn't he know that *I* invented masculism? HMMMMMPH!!
Stomping off,
Remo
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With all due respect, Hawth, I disagree strongly with the idea that places the priorities of the mens movement on reparations first. First of all, the idea of reparations is ridiculous, since most of the time it is spoken of, the ones that would wind up paying it aren't the ones that did whatever dastardly deed needs to be 'reparated'. The 'sins of the father' idea is a handy one that some segments of society like to beat other segments of society over the head with, as if it were true. It may be in a spiritual sense 'true', and it is actually an Old Testament scripture, which some may think gives it some weight to use as a weapon against a perceived oppressor, especially if the oppressor is seen as the source of the idea. It's like trying to take a way an enemy's sword and spank them with it. In this case, it would most certainly be a double edged sword, if you get my drift. It must be obvious to the men that are experiencing the oppression wrought by the feminist hegemony that they won't even be able to repair thier OWN lives until feminism takes its spiked high heel off of mens necks, which doesn't look like we will be patiently waiting for THAT to happen. Once we have forcefully removed that heel in the near future, it may be time to look at what is actually fair for the moment we live in. As for reperations, the feminists won't be getting a dime of my sympathy....or my money.
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I heartily disagree with the idea of reparations. For one thing, as Adam points out, the reparations are rarely paid by the alleged perpetrators of alleged transgressions. In addition, as Warren Farrell points out, for the most part throughout history men and women suffered unique forms of oppression and enjoyed unique forms of advantage. I grew up in the US during the 50s and 60s, supposedly during the height of western patriarchy, and there is no doubt in my mind that males had it far harder than females during that time.
If you do feel that males should pay reparations, though, feel free to do so. You can start by sending a check to my wife :-)
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Whoa, boy - I humbly apologize for my grossly improper usage of a term! Sorry - didn't mean to scare you guys into thinking you had a body snatcher invasion on the forum or something.
By 'reparations', I did not mean monetary rewards, or apologies from members of one group to another. However, you were right to think I meant that, since I realize that that's been the common meaning of the term.
What I meant was: REPAIR. Repair something that's broken, or not constructed properly. Repair the unequal laws. Repair the stereotypes. That's what I meant. Again, I'm sorry for the bad choice of words.
And sorry, Thomas...your wife is just gonna have to pay for her own pantyhose! :-)
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"Andronism" sounds a bit too much like an android rights movement to me. :)
sd
Those who like this sort of thing
will find this the sort of thing they like.
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I realize that words have power and names matter for the image they create, but personally, I prefer to give more weight to actions over words. Call them what you want - if they act for equality before the law for both sexes, they're my kinda people.
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------
I realize that words have power and names matter for the image they create, but personally, I prefer to give more weight to actions over words.
------
Yea, thats being a man! Men should believe in action instead of words, its really manly!
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I confess that I've got a problem with the term 'masculism.' If masculism is to men as feminism is to women, then this is not something we want to pursue.
Agreed. The alternative to feminism is not merely another childish, divisive face-off, but a view which includes all and is concerned for the welfare of all. Which is exactly what the best of men have always exemplified.
I've never cared for the term "masculism," which seems to me an awkward, ugly word. Anyway, before I even heard of it (which was only recently) it seemed to me the logical "opposite" of feminism would be "virism," from "vir," the Latin for "man" -- as I had always taken "feminism" to be constructed from "femina," the Latin for "woman." And a "virist" is exactly what I'm not.
It's unfortunate that "humanist" has come to be associated with a view denying and opposing religious or other deep values, which leaves me reluctant to be associated with it, though I haven't come up with anything better in this context.
Don't much care for "egalitarian"; it sounds nice, but like most such "warm-and-fuzzy" language, doesn't really apply very well to reality. I don't find the two sexes to be "equal" at all in any meaningful terms, and efforts to pretend that they are lead us into a dreamworld wherein ultimately nothing will work. I'm more interested in doing my best to see reality as it is, then try to work out a way to live together which minimizes suffering for all.
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Shepperd Mead used the word masculinist in his 1972 book "Free the Male Man." (ISBN: 671-21123-4 Simon & Schuster: New York, 1972).
His usage shows that the word msaculinist had been used before. We therefore know that the term masculinist predates 1971 when he wrote the book.
As for this Daly guy being an early leader I really do not know. Shep Mead and Hrb Goldberg are the only early leaders still alive and writing, maybe someone shoulds ask them.
Greg
the Volksgaren Project: Intelligent Abuse Recovery, http://clix.to/support/, jaxom@amtelecom.net, 519-773-9644
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"Andronism" sounds a bit too much like an android rights movement to me. :)
Funny you should mention that, as I am pro-artificial beings. :)
what I think: If you use "masculist" or masculinist", people will assume you're a male chauvinist. I prefer "equalitarian" or "equalist" myself, as the whole idea opf the men's movement is to create genuine equality.
"Female men's activist" is not an oxymoron.
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I agree with LadyRivka. We might be better off if we soon drop the name, "masculist/masculinist," and move to some name that clearly indicates a desire for equality. It would show our true intentions and would further serve to undermine feminism.
Hawth: Ya can't blame a guy for tryin'.
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I agree with LadyRivka. We might be better off if we soon drop the name, "masculist/masculinist," and move to some name that clearly indicates a desire for equality. It would show our true intentions and would further serve to undermine feminism.
While I certainly understand that POV, I'm willing to do things the "hard way" and simply continue calling myself a masculist. Why? Because my special interest is in the masculine side of equality, much the same way Wendy McElroy describes why she includes the word feminism in ifeminism. Her focus is equality with a special emphasis on what it means for women. I don't think those things are contradictory.
For years, I called myself egalitarian, but my problem with was it didn't stir the shitstorm. You're egalitarian? Nobody cares. Nobody listens to what you say because they think they already know. "Oh, you're for equal rights. Well, isn't everyone?"
Call yourself a masculist, on the other hand, or a men's rights advocate, and you find yourself required to explain what you mean by it. That's when you get people to listen (and/or argue).
Just my opinion, and ain't it great that we all have one? ;)
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Just my opinion, and ain't it great that we all have one? ;)
Yup! For the time being I'll probably stick with going between masculinist and egalitarian.
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