Hello and welcome to today’s episode of The Nice-ish Rambling Podcast, with me the Nice-ish Psychologist where today I am going to be discussing the cheery subject of the “war on men”. I say cheery with a sense of irony because in looking into some information for this episode, I have come across some quite intense information – some intense statistics that, if you are a woman, might be a bit heavy to hear. So, if you are a woman listening to this and things become a bit heavy, please do look after yourself and take a break if you need to, or just put this episode to rest. I guess this episode is more food for thought for any men that might be listening.
The reason I want to talk about this, and the reason I want men to pay attention, is because there is a growing narrative that exists online that – and as the title of this episode suggests – there is a “war on men”. It is a narrative that has long been held by what could be considered Men’s Rights Activists, a movement that essentially exists in opposition to feminism. MRAs would argue that they are egalitarians, seeking to ensure equality for all, specifically for men, and will do this by highlighting specific populations of men or areas of society in which men experience hardships. Common themes are that of unemployment, high suicide rates among men, boy’s falling behind in education, men having to go to war, supposed lack of custody rights for fathers and parental alienation, and the claim that men experience domestic abuse as frequently as women.
Now it is not the intent of this podcast episode to go through all the issues highlighted by MRAs and discuss them in detail – there is a lot of subtlety and nuance to these issues, which are very real and do exist to some extent. However, MRAs will often use these as examples to highlight how feminism, or the pursuit of equal rights for marginalised groups in general, has left men the forgotten victims of society. Laura Bates discusses Men’s Rights Activist in a lot more detail in her book Men Who Hate Women, which I would highly suggest you read if any of this is of interest to you – and so I won’t get into this right now. But what I will say is that I feel like the “war on men” narrative is fed by the MRA ideology and beliefs about society having “gone too far” with respect to feminism. But in some way, I now feel that the “war on men” narrative is weaponizing masculinity as part of its repertoire, too, suggesting that masculinity is in crisis. And the more this “war on men” narrative - which has its roots in what is known as the manosphere (Laura Bates talks about this in her book, too) - the more this narrative is starting to spread, the more it is starting to make its way into mainstream online arenas such as Instagram and Twitter.
The inspiration for this podcast episode comes from an Instagram post that was shared on the account of Lalalaletmeexplain – if you don’t know who Lalalaletmeexplain is I would highly suggest you follow her. She is a former social worker, author, and I guess she is a dating advice guru (her book is called Block, Delete, Move On), but she is also a very straight-talking feminist voice who I have learned a lot from. A lot of her content is rooted in highlighting sexist and misogynistic behaviour in the dating world, but also branches out into areas of domestic and sexual violence, and calling out general bullshit by men – as is the case with the Instagram post in question. I am not going to disclose who the post was by in this episode, but I have selected some choice passages from the caption to focus on.
The Instagram post in question has a picture of the owner of the account, a man, looking at the camera, smiling quite genially, with the title: “The War on Men” and the caption opens with these first few lines:
“There’s a war going on at the moment that a small group of people can see but the majority can’t (yet)….”
“It’s a war on men designed to demonise, oppress and make men weak…”
So, I guess when I read this kind of stuff, I am always curious as to who this war is being declared by. Who is declaring this war? Usually in a war there is an aggressor and a victim I suppose; the person or people declared war upon.
Now, I don’t want to seem like I’m making things a competition, but I guess it would be helpful to point out what a war (that is, acts of aggression and violence) declared a specific gender would look like. And here I would like to declare that I have once more taken inspiration from the stories of Lalalaletmeexplain (I actually have very little of my own original ideas). But in order to do this discussion justice it might be helpful you think about three “wars” against women that are currently being perpetrated in different parts of the world. And just a warning, this is where shit gets a bit heavy.
The first example, on a war on women is that earlier this year in America, a supposed “first world” or “developed” country, the Supreme Court of the United States unleashed what was described as an “unprecedented attack on women, girls, and people of reproductive capacity”. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a law that had provided 50 years of established constitutional protection for abortion, and has now made abortion illegal in America - which in some states also includes abortions related to miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. And if you think about it, 50 years is not all that long for a law like this to have existed. People have grandparents older than this law. That’s absolutely bonkers if you think about it. But what’s even more bonkers is the fact that this law, a right for those who are able to give birth to choose whether they give both or not, to have autonomy over their body, has been taken away. Just like that. It actually blows my mind and I still cannot fathom how, in this day and age a person’s right to live their life how they choose have just been stripped away. It’s fucking nuts.
The second example is that in September in Iran, a 22-year-old women named Mahsa Amini died while being detained in custody. Her crime? In the capital city Tehrans, Masha Amini was not wearing a hijab in accordance with compulsory Islamic hijab laws - turns out she was wearing a hijab, but she was wearing it loosely. And so she was arrested by the morality police, taken into custody, where she later died having allegedly been beaten in a police truck on her way to being detained. I say allegedly as Iranian authorities claim no violence was used against Masha Amini, but rather that she collapsed from a heart attack.
Her death has sparked “unprecedented protests” in the country, with women defying the governments laws and cutting their hair in solidarity, and joined by men who support these women and wish to change the laws that treat the women of Iran as second class citizens, alongside other grievances of how the Iranian government treats its citizens in general. Seemingly though, these protest are nothing new - there were protests in the late 70s and 80s when the new form of government took over in 1979 and started making plans to restricted the rights and privileges of women, supposedly in line with the faith of Islam. The protests were held for the same reasons they are today, but despite the protests, new restrictions on women’s clothes, became law in 1983 - that’s just under 40 years ago. Again, that’s mad. Additionally, the death of Masha Amini is not the first time violence has been used against women by the so called morality police, not necessarily resulting in death, in the way that Masha Amini was treated (although I could be wrong about this). But it has been reported that women in Iran are continually harassed by the morality police, and if having been found to contravene the hijab laws are made to attend “educational classes” (and who knows that education looks like). This is all apparently a common occurrence.
Then, in South Africa, there is what been referred to in some news sources as a “pandemic” of femicide. The term femicide was seemingly first used in 1801, in a book called A Satirical View of London at the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century, by John Corry, where it was used to refer to the killing of a woman. However, in 1976, it was reintroduced by a feminist pioneer, Diana Russel, at the International Tribunal of Crimes Against Women in order to bring attention to violence against women, and has seen two definitions. The first from 1976 defined femicide as: “the murder of women by men motivated by hatred, contempt, pleasure, or a sense of ownership of women”. While the second definition - updated for the United Nations Symposium on Femicide in 2012, and defined once more by Diana Russel - notes that femicide is “the killing of one or more females by one or more males because they are female”.
In South Africa, the number of women killed is staggering, and the country is included in the top 25 countries in the world for the highest rates of women killed - along with other countries like El Salvador, which ranks number one. But according to the website, Africa Check, in 2020/21, a total of 2,655 women were murdered in South Africa, with an additional 898 women killed in the last quarter of 2021. To put those numbers into context, a BBC article from this year noted that, by comparison, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicate that between April 2020 and March 2021 (so the same time frame that the figures from South Africa were taken), 177 women were murdered in England and Wales, compared to 416 men. 177 women in the UK compared to 2,655 women in South Africa. However, whilst the UK numbers might not be as high as those in South Africa, the UK is still facing its own femicide issue. The same article notes that of the 177 women killed, 109 were killed by a man and 10 by a woman, and in 58 cases there was no known suspect. This means that - where the suspect was known - 92% of women were killed by men in the year ending March 2021.
There is a UK Femicide Census that analyses the murders of women in the United Kingdom. Some of the findings of the 2020 census note that 110 women were killed by men in 2020. 111 men were implicated in those murders, but at the time of publication only 79 had been found responsible for killing a woman - that means roughly a third of perpetrators had not been held accountable. Further stats highlight that 52% of women were killed by a former or current partner, 13% were killed by their son, and only 8% were killed by a stranger. 77% of killings took in the home, in 48% of cases there was a known history of violence and abuse by the perpetrator against the victim, and 53% of perpetrators were know to have previous histories of violence against women.
So, what is the point I am trying to make with all of these horrific stats? I guess it’s that when we talk about a war perpetrated against a gender, there is more evidence - more tangible evidence that can be pointed to, seen, noted down - of who the aggressors might be when it comes to violence perpetrated against women. However, there does not seem to be either a) the same level of violence perpetrated against males and men based on sex or gender or b) an obvious perpetrator. Like I said, I am not trying to say who has it worse, but I guess I am trying to highlight how this narrative of a “war on men” is vague. Although the author does go on to say this:
“Because no one is easier to control then a passive, docile, domesticated doormat that is unsure of himself and feeling a sense of shame for being a man…..”
“Despite what is unconsciously getting fed, we need STRONG men and despite the popular narrative (from the ‘woke’ numpties) there is a shit ton of people that LOVE seeing men step into their (healthy) masculine power…”
“If these c*nts in positions of power thought every single bloke was just going to roll over and become a passive passenger they were wrong.”
See, this is interesting - while the use of “cunts” might be generic, I can’t help but think that he is talking about women and feminism - I might be wrong. But even if I am wrong, there is also an allusion to them being in “positions of power”. Like, who? Who are these people, and why can’t they be named? Is that because there are no real people in positions of power trying to make men docile, passive, and domesticated. But keeping it vague helps it make it seem like it’s a bit of a conspiracy, that there are dark forces at play. Or is it the “woke numpties” who are doing this.
Also, what is it that these “cunts” and “woke numpties” are asking. Last time I checked no one was asking men to be weak or docile; I think you’ll find that men are being asked to not be stoic and emotionless, to get in touch with a wider range of emotions and increase their emotional intelligence - this does not mean weak. Also, we’re being asked to be less reliant of physical violence (or even the threat or capability of violence that Jordan Peterson likes to talk about) and deal with conflict more healthily. And as I said earlier, this does not seem to relate to any of the real world issues facing men, like unemployment, high rates of suicide, things like this. This seems to be a concern about the re-evaluation of masculinity or what it means to be a man.
Because again, the idea that there is something wrong with being weak and docile highlights that there is a particular way of being a man. Even thought the author of this Instagram post and caption talks about men stepping into healthy masculinity, there is still some delineation that one type of way of being a man is better. Like, I always struggle with the word weak when it comes to men - like, what do men like man who made this post mean when they denigrate weak men. Are they talking about physicality and physical strength? Or are they talking about like mental fortitude? Or resiliency in the face of adversity? Or how to stand you ground and be assertive? Because weak can mean so many things. But then, at the same time, there is sometimes a narrative that seems to imply that weak men are the ones who are dangerous - like, how and in what way? Are they weak because even when talking about healthy masculinity there is an element of strength needed to be a man, and with strength comes power? And so are those who denigrate weak men saying that weak men will go to dangerous lengths to obtain power? Well, probably, yeah - because if you make it that you can’t be seen as a man - even a healthy man by this particular individuals construction of masculinity - without any kind of power, then you create power as something to be coveted.
No idea if any of this makes sense - but I suppose what I am trying to highlight is that all of this - this “war on men” rhetoric - appears to be a push back against the idea that the current rule of thumb of masculinity might no longer be up to scratch. And there is something quite insidious about calling it a “war”, because if you’re calling it a war - and this might be me taking my interpretation of this a bit too melodramatically far, but still - if you’re gonna call it a war then you’re likely looking to recruit soldier in the “battle” to push back. Which might sound, as I said, a bit melodramatic, but when coupled with another segment of the caption under question doesn’t feel all that far off:
“Here’s the thing - if men wake up to what is unfolding and step into their power, they’re a lot less likely to roll over it and just take it from those in positions of power. They become a threat to the regime. So gents RISE.”
Which, I am not going to lie, sounds just a teeny bit propaganda-esuqe. It sounds a little bit like a mobilisation, a call to action, which is somewhat concerning more and more, current research is starting to highlight that younger men are buying into this narrative and this rhetoric, one might even use the term radicalised in this way, or even groomed into believing that there is a unknown force out there trying to diminish men. In a 2021 article discussing this (which also features commentary by Laura Bates), research by Dr Joshua Roose notes that one in three men under the age of 35 believe that women’s right have gone too far. And while I am not saying that the specific post in question in ad of itself is adding to this kind of belief, but I would certainly venture that it is part of the difficulty and the concern. And the fact that it is being disseminated online in a popular social media platform like Instagram, and no longer quarantined to the more clandestine, murkier, and lesser known message boards of the internet is what gives me pause.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this (or if you have listened to it as a podcast). If you have found this interesting please do share, subscribe, or leave a rating or comment. Also, please do come share your thoughts on the topic with me on my Instagram page.
Thanks,
Nice-ish.
19: The "War on Men"