HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018576.jpg
2.59 MB
Extraction Summary
4
People
2
Organizations
1
Locations
2
Events
1
Relationships
4
Quotes
Document Information
Type:
Article/blog post printout (part of house oversight committee production)
File Size:
2.59 MB
Summary
This document appears to be a page from an article or blog post discussing gender studies, specifically focusing on the concept of masculinity and male privilege. It references educator Katz (likely Jackson Katz), the Dove Real Beauty campaign, and an article by Thomas Millar regarding male sexuality. The text analyzes the societal pressures on men regarding masculinity compared to women. The document bears a 'HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018576' Bates stamp, indicating it was part of a document production for a US House Oversight Committee investigation.
People (4)
| Name | Role | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Katz | Male anti-abuse educator |
Lectures in colleges, discussed issues of masculinity.
|
| Thomas Millar | Author |
Quoted regarding male sexuality and masculinity assumptions.
|
| Unnamed Friend | Friend of author |
Met at BDSM meetup, discusses gender dynamics but denies interest in 'gender studies'.
|
| Unnamed Trans Man | Example subject |
Mentioned as having trouble transitioning due to not wanting to be seen as an oppressor.
|
Organizations (2)
| Name | Type | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Dove |
Referenced regarding the 'Dove Campaign for Real Beauty'.
|
|
| House Oversight Committee |
Implied by the Bates stamp 'HOUSE_OVERSIGHT'.
|
Timeline (2 events)
Locations (1)
| Location | Context |
|---|---|
|
Where Katz lectures (general reference).
|
Relationships (1)
Met at a BDSM meetup, discussed gender theory.
Key Quotes (4)
"It's certainly true that if we want to end male abuse of women, men must participate in the movement."Source
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Quote #1
"marketers now capitalize on it to sell beauty products: the nationwide Dove Campaign for Real Beauty attempts to use deconstruction of the media's representation of women to sell Dove soap."Source
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Quote #2
"There's a huge unstated assumption that to even address the question [of male sexuality], for men, is to mark one's self as 'other.'"Source
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Quote #3
"women don't risk being seen as unfeminine as easily as men risk being seen as unmasculine"Source
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Quote #4
Full Extracted Text
Complete text extracted from the document (3,446 characters)
male anti-abuse educator who lectures in colleges around the country. Bullet-headed and aggressive in stance, he said a lot of valuable things -- particularly about how men ought to take ownership of problems we traditionally consider "women's issues." It's certainly true that if we want to end male abuse of women, men must participate in the movement. But although Katz discussed some issues of masculinity, I heard little about how we can make things better for men. His proposition of a men's movement was centered around correcting the things some men are doing wrong.
Although they're often watered down, many feminist concepts have gone mainstream. For instance, Americans have some consciousness of traditional feminist critiques about how women's bodies are represented in the media. Indeed, that consciousness has become so endemic that, in a grandly ironic twist, marketers now capitalize on it to sell beauty products: the nationwide Dove Campaign for Real Beauty attempts to use deconstruction of the media's representation of women to sell Dove soap. Americans are also quite aware of men as the privileged class -- sometimes regarded outright as the oppressors.
But this shift in awareness about gender issues faced by women has not been accompanied by a widespread understanding of gender issues faced by men. And that creates situations like an activist working towards a masculinity movement that talks mainly about how men are hurting women, or a trans man who has trouble with the idea of transitioning partly because he doesn't want to be a white man -- one of the oppressors.
How can awareness of oppressive dynamics make it difficult for men to own their masculinity? Does male privilege ever make life harder for men? When does male privilege blind us to oppression of masculinity? There's some mainstream awareness of gender issues faced by women; is there any similar awareness of the problems of masculinity?
A good friend of mine first caught my attention by talking about gender. We encountered each other at a BDSM meetup, and when I mentioned that I'd been thinking about the boxes around masculine sexuality, he launched into a rant about oppressive sexual dynamics. He gave me references to complex sexuality blogs and intelligently used words like "heteronormative" and "patriarchy." But a month or so after we started talking, I mentioned his interest in gender issues... and he gave me a puzzled look. "I'm not really into gender studies," he said.
He talks about sex, gender and culture all the time -- but he also specifically identifies as highly masculine, and felt that to be at odds with identifying as someone who questions masculinity. As Thomas Millar writes in his aforementioned article: "There's a huge unstated assumption that to even address the question [of male sexuality], for men, is to mark one's self as 'other.' ... cis het men are brought up to fear that their masculinity could ever be called into question. By even opening up a dialog, I think some folks fear that they are conceding that their sexuality is not uncontroversial."
Men currently experience this problem in a way that women do not. In other words, women don't risk being seen as unfeminine as easily as men risk being seen as unmasculine; nor do we have quite the same fears about it. In 2008, a group of researchers published a paper called "Precarious Manhood." Their concluding statement:
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018576
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