Great post.

I found myself rather speechless when i read that post the other so much so that I found it hard to even fathom writing a blog response to it (something that doesn’t happen to me often).

I think if someone is going to make an attack of the basic principles of feminism and Womens Studies programs more specifically (which by the way i have my own criticisms of) they should at least have a thoughtful and informed opinion. The National Post editorial just smacked of ridiculous right rhetoric. Luckily for all of us, their demise is simply a matter of time.

This is an excellent argument for freedom of speech: just in case anybody thought that the National Post wasn’t backward and primitive in their thinking — here’s the evidence.

Notice also that you have to sign up to leave a comment on their site. What or who are they afraid of? They’re just laughable,

I can’t thank you enough for posting this. I was so angry when I read the Post’s editorial, I couldn’t even muster up a reasoned response. Luckily (and so eloquently), you’ve done it for me.

Agreed, 100 per cent. Here’s my take: http://maxfawcett.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/crazy-like-the-post/

Thank you for writing this. The Post should feel deep shame for this editorial.

To read views like these, views almost undoubtedly shared by Marc Lepine, in the pages of a national paper is astounding. It’s embarrassing to think there are still Canadians who feel this way. If newspapers are headed the way of the dodo, I should hope the Post is one of the first to go, and it takes their offensive editors with them.

Yes, I am ashamed of the National Post. This seems to be part of a general plan to make Canada a more religious, less tolerant, less informed society.

i hate to agree in a comment. so how about this – why further publication of this crap?

Thank you! One can only hope that responses to that editorial will wake up some people over at the Post. Surely they couldn’t have posted such drivel to be viewed as “controversial” and to increase their readership numbers, could they?

Funny how most of the opposition to the NP editorial has come from Toronto and Toronto’s media. Leftists can’t stand that someone would hold beliefs so different from their own and that heaven for bid, those beliefs might be expressed. I am proud of the NP for publishing divergent opinions that the shoddy Globe would never dare to publish.

How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? It’s a trick question: feminists can’t change anything.

As much as I am not a fan of the Post, I do see validity in their argument. I wonder deeply at what the feminist revolution hath wrought and do not see that it is good for society, neither men nor women and least of all children.

I come from a progressive camp – eg a degree in “marxist feminist gay-lesbian studies” (what the profs jokingly referred to the “film studies” dept as). But my own ‘real world’ experience has left me with a jaundiced view.

I’ve witnessed many broken marriages. But the one consistency in them was the conflict of careers and children. The pattern being, uber-woman on career path has child, is confronted by biological realities of being female and train goes off tracks. By off tracks I mean suicide (2), psychiatric hospital (4) or simply walking out on the marriage (too many to mention). I am talking women with LLBs, MBA, PHDs who (as my divorced friend wryly puts it) put on the ‘astronaut diapers”.

Anecdotal as this is, it’s backed by statistical reality Beyond the fact that most marriages fail, there is the reality that most divorces in Canada are initiated by women – 81% according to a law society report my own divorce lawyer sent me (she being a woman incidentally). Then my own experience of the legal system that is bias against men in divorce, enabling newly empowered women to exercise it in punitive fashion (eg taking the kids and the money), leaving an ex-husband who is paying for a nanny so that his ex-wife can work.

Furthering my jaundiced view is the fact that, in my circle, not one of the men wanted to end the marriage – the story is always the same, something changed for her. Statistics bear this out. And I have, in my circle, not a few male friends sticking it out with a woman who has, post-motherhood, become permanently disfunctional (eg long-term psychiatric care).

But it’s not just men that suffer. I think it’s the women. After several 10s of thousands of years of human society being ordered around the fundamental reality that men provide, women bear children, we decided to ‘fix’ things. I don’t think it’s been good for women – the suicides, hospitalizations and ‘single-mom with career’ situations being less than their mothers had.

Indeed, the elder women in my life like my own mother, ex-mother in law and those of my friends wonder openly at (to quote one of them) “this divorce mad generation of women”, and despair.

But its the kids in my opinion that suffer the most. A lot of them have what I call “zero parent” families. Dad has been kicked to the kerb and is someone who brings presents on occasion, mom is out there killing it in the marketplace 10 hours a day, and someone who speak Tagalog is in the place of a parent. Thats the norm for the professional class in Toronto. If I were a kid, i’d rather have mommy or daddy with me, someone who loves me as their child.

But what really bothers me is that it is taboo to speak of this in the media, and have a reasonable discussion about the merits of post-feminist society. I for one long for what my parents had – which included my mom working, once I was a bit older, as her 4 kids were her priority and to my knowledge included not a bit of abuse at the hands of her husband.

For one, quoting the statistics on “women in careers” is facile because, as has been pointed out by many, women self-select out of these career paths because it would prevent them having kids, for one. Feminism and women-studies does, on one hand, push women into a “career-path” mentality and I am not sure that all women want that, or can frankly handle the dual pressures of being “parent’ and “ceo”.

Any wonder heart-disease statistics are also rising for women? Fighting wars and having careers isn’t good for the health, as men have always known. Put “child bearing” on top of that and, well, any wonder I am seeing so many women in crisis?

“Leftists can’t stand that someone would hold beliefs so different from their own and that heaven for bid, those beliefs might be expressed.”

Is equality of men and women still a leftist belief? I thought it was a basic human right? I’m fairly certain women coast to coast, right to left, would like to be treated as people. But what the hell do I know, I live in Toronto.

Shorter Robert: Wimmenz have gotten uppity.
Women who do all the housework, all the child rearing, and bring home the bacon because of economic realities with little to no choice in the matter, just can’t accept their place!

Darnit!
And yanno, his childhood and his parents marriage was so wonderful.

Thank you Walrus!! and Stacy, Amy, and Alexandra (no hiding behind ‘editorial board’ here!) What a great response – especially since it’s so hard to even know where to begin with that one! The Canadian Women’s Studies Association (CWSA/ACEF) has also responded to them…as have many of our members. But we’re so glad to see this taken up by the larger Arts community in Canada too :) Great stuff….

So… are you a staff writer for Gary Unmarried?

Michael: You know that the National Post is published out of (gasp!) Toronto, right?

I am grateful that someone else pointed out that the NP may have deliberately published this for shock value and noise-generation. Isn’t it obvious? *sigh*
For those who repeatedly point out that legal systems favour women in divorce proceedings: Part of the reason the kids usually go with their mom is BECAUSE of hegemonic patriachical beliefs that they belong with mom and not dad – based on the assumption that she would make the better nurturer.
Also – “several 10s of thousands of years of human society being ordered around the fundamental reality that men provide, women bear children”. To respond to this ridiculous statement: It was never an option before. I suppose Robert would be happier if birth control options didn’t exist so life could resume to it’s “fundamental reality”. Also- it is a mistaken belief that women stayed home and nurtured while men provided. In the vast majority of cultures wolrdwide, BOTH male and female provide. Hunting and meat are very difficult to acquire and hence only eaten sporadically. The only reason we are alive today is because of the steady diet of smaller plants and tubers dug by females. Get to know a little anthropology before stating ‘facts’ about our human past, “marxist feminist gay-lesbian studies”.

Barely, based on my daily commute.

Thank-you, Walrus! The National Post’s article contained all of the bigoted stereotypes of feminism and women’s studies with none of the realities. My experience of women’s studies was “pro woman, not anti- man”. We studied the effects of gender bias on men as well as women and emphasized the idea of choice (i.e. you can choose to be a stay at home mom – or dad – if that best suited you or your family). So, much of what they used as argument, and also what Robert above has used, is not supported by the reality of the programs.

I very much like this post.

Sorry. I couldn’t read with credibility past the part where you accuse NP of over-generalizing, and then proceed to do the same in the next paragraph. Perhaps your editorial board believes that kindergarten, the public education system, and the post-secondary education system are the same thing, but clearly you’ve chosen to ignore the nuance imparted by the words chosen in the original.

Great comment but perhaps not enough?
Is anyone else writing to the post on this issue?

Thanks Walrus for such a reasoned response.

Just a quick response to Robert:
Damage to the health and happiness of women and children because of womens’ success in the workplace is such a red herring. Yes, many women are drastically overworked and find themselves unable to cope with balancing work and family. This is not a symptom of equality, it is a subtler lack of equality – the belief that a modern woman must be a superwoman.
It is superficial to say that feminism’s only goal is equal access to education, careers and so on. That is only possible, or desirable, if other aspects of life are also equitable. Husbands/spouses/partners must take an equal role in the household, and workplaces must allow for a suitable work-life balance, both for men and women.
There has been a great deal of progress in this – longer maternity leaves and parental leave for men is a good example – but so much farther to go. So I cheer on our Women’s Studies / Gender Studies programs. I hope the results of their work will lead to a more happy, humane and fulfilling lifestyle for all of us.

Nav, yes I know the National Post published out of *gasp* Toronto for I *gasp* live in Toronto.

The National Post didn’t have a gripe with equality of the sexes as Nic Boshart deludedly suggested. I think some irate lefties haven’t even read the original editorial.

i don’t know, my women’s studies degree taught me that the fact that you are posting on the internet means that you’ve benefited from feminism.

I mean, you as a woman have access to not only computers but a male-dominated technology where you can voice your opinion!

I say +1 for the feminists!

Bigots are everywhere. It just happens that more of them work for the Post and read it (without nausea). It is thanks to writers like this (I recall an article by Diane Francis claiming it is un-Canadian to have a disability, be a woman, be an ethnic minority or be of First Nation’s descent) that I consider the Post to be a rag.

S

oh Carol and Fiona, where to start! Firstly, thanks for taking the bait as I knew someone would (just as NP knew their article would create a firestorm). I’ll address your various comments collectively:

I guess men have never been farmers? Or diggers of tubors rather lol? It is only two generations since my own male forebears were out there with the plants & tubors & livestock, and guns to hunt while the women were back with the kids, preparing the meals required to deliver enough calories for the men to work the fields.

The gender roles were clearly defined, and frankly, no one was having an easy time of it. But they were defined for a reasons – a physiological reason. And out there in the country, this is still the norm for my relatives. Dad does the heavy lifting, mom cooks and cleans.

The comments about men taking and “equal role”, sound nice on paper but in practice, reversing/merging gender roles is a slippery slope, because there is a certain amount of physiological hard wiring. Like the reason why men are larger than women for starters (men are larger to be able to provide whereas a woman’s body mass is smaller as her biological energy is directed to reproducing). Or why women live longer (grandmothers are more important to rearing children than grandfathers, passing the life skills down to their daughters).

You need to appreciate my own “empirical” experience with men having an equal role, as I once thought as you do now, but have become jaundiced.

While I was back at home doing all the cooking, cleaning shopping and child rearing duties, enjoying my parental leave, my wife was off advancing her career which, in her case, involved not just working hard but also having a sexual relationship with her boss (which did indeed advanced her career, but it also broke up our marriage). This all came out in counseling, where I got a real lesson in Jungian psychoanalysis, the nature of “animus and anima” and how this contributed to the breakdown of our relationship. As is goes, I had taken on the Female roles of child rearing and cooking, my Anima side taking over, was no longer a good provider and thus become less sexually attractive to my alpha-female partner who found a better provider and partner (the fact that her boss was, well, her boss and also married with kids being kind of a secondary concern in this jungian context).

Then I learned about Divorce Laws, where a women earning several times what her husband earns is still entitled to “formula” support, and invariably wins the custody battle. This has got little to do with “hegemonic paternalistic beliefs”, but a lot to do with “womb” and “breasts”.

If I had a nickle for everytime I’ve talked to a guy in a similar situation…

So get bent, and live a bit. “Feminism” is, as with all “isms” something that only works perfectly in a theoretical context – just as the beautiful utopian ideals of “marxism” become the labour camps of Stalin & Mao in the real world. Things were not by any means perfect before, but I think “equality” is the red herring as there are inherent inequalities between the genders and there always will be. Unless we become a race of transgendered “post-gender” beings, with shared stature and fiddly bits, raising children spawned in labs (surely if science can solve the problem of birth control, it can also solve the problems of men not having wombs and breasts!).

So yes, I have a jaundiced view. I’d probably be ok with this is there was a “men’s studies” program at most universities. From my own observations and experiences, I do not know that it is women that have issues of inequality so mc anymore. It seems to me that, in the realm of gender relations in post-feminist Canadian society, men are the “palestinians”.

WOW! Where have you been? Are you twelve? My intent was to list everything I could think of that feminists have changed, but there isn’t enough room on this site.

Thanks for writing this response to the NP editorial of last week. I particularly appreciate your observation that this editorial is alarmingly pernicious. I couldn’t agree more: the hateful tone of this particular editorial really seemed like a rallying cry for men to protect themselves, their interests, families, etc. from feminists, and to do so proactively. So, thanks for composing a measured response.

RE: ‘Robert’

Please people, I know it’s a hackneyed expression, but…

DON’T FEED THE TROLLS.

This (Palestinian?) gentleman is not likely to give good reason or come over to it, if he’s even serious…save your energy.

Thank you Stacy,Amy and Alexandra for finding a way to respond in an intelligent way to such a ridiculous and venomous editorial.

Just as the National Post editorial only served to prove how desperate for attention that dying paper has become, your response has proved how vital the Walrus is to intelligent debate in Canada.

well done.

It’s about time feminists start going on the offensive. They’ve allowed “journalists” at companies like the NP to malign them for years. Too bad this column wasn’t written 10 years ago.

Robert, I find it a touch shocking that you are unaware of the irony in your post. Your suggestion is that, based upon your “empricial” experience, that marital breakdowns are on the rise because women in the workplace are unfaithful to their husbands — as if it was unheard of for men in the workplace to step outside of their marraiges, given the opportunity.

So the solution is to “keep women in the kitchen,” and leave the cheating to the men?

Your arguments for biological determinism also apply poorly in a modern context — it takes no greater physical ability for a woman to work in many of the male-dominated fields (law, politics, commerce…)

This editorial in the Walrus is a powerful and positive retort to the National Post’s bigotted column on women’s studies courses in universies. I want to thank the writers for their thoughtful statements. In the early 1990′s I graduated in women’s studies (the stream had to be subsumed under the title “interdisciplinary”) . I can only hope that the younger people today don’t think that this sort of backlash as so ridiculous that they don’t respond in force. Having experienced the disagreeable and dangerous backlash to feminism once in the late eighties,I don’t want to see it getting a firmer grip.

To be honest, when I read the NP editorial I just laughed. I guess I’m just so used to these kinds of comments that it doesn’t phase me anymore.

My favourite comment on the piece is as follows, from a fellow named Stewart Thompson (or maybe Stewartt Hompson):

“Wow, a Canadian newspaper that has the audacity to question the hateful, feminist propaganda known as Women’s Studies. And here we have the bigoted, dishonest supporters of feminism who are aghast. Nobody would dare criticize them on campus, except Larry Summers. Feminist are the only people that I know of who fight against sexual equality. Rule of Thumb! Super Bowl Hoax! Affirmative action against men! Go back to faking statistics on domestic violence and the pay gap fraud.”

That’s right, domestic violence and the super bowl are both hoaxes, and Larry Summers is a hero who had the courage to question the intellectual abilities of women. Stay classy, Stewie.

Robert,

And why is it, exactly, that the woman has to pick between “parent” and “ceo”?

Have you ever considered that the reason so many women seek psychiatric help or initiate divorce is because they have been sold this bill of goods – “be all you can be” – only to have the reality be that if they choose to fulfill themselves with a career, that they are also expected to do most, if not all, of the housework, grocery shopping, etc …

You also wrote: “After several 10s of thousands of years of human society being ordered around the fundamental reality that men provide, women bear children, we decided to ‘fix’ things.”

I think that you might have to go back to school – in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, the gathering was done primarily by women and even children. And there are many scientists who believe that the gathering part of the equation actually provided a lot more of the diet than the hunting part.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I see that you are blaming society’s ills on feminism … which is kind of like blaming headaches on aspirin. Feminism was borne to address issues, and sure, it has its flaws and side effects, but that doesn’t mean that you can blame it for things like divorce. The reality is far more complex.

Yeah – uh, you lost me at “mandatory diversity training.” You quote from the editorial, “Women’s Studies courses have taught that all women — or nearlyall [sic] — are victims and nearly all men are victimizers.” Then you attempt to state that this proves that they don’t understand feminism. Then you end your piece with, basically, an argument that women are victims: “… rape and sexual abuse; pay inequality; domestic violence; barriers to education and employment; the dearth of female representation in governments worldwide, in the professions, and in arts and letters…”

Silly

So according to the National Post, Women’s Studies are now the root of all evil?

We all, women and men live in a country with no real national daycare policy, no consistent enforcement in the higher courts of the fair principle of equal pay for work of equal value, a country where less than one third of the politicians in Parliament are of the same gender as more than half of their constituents. The Supreme Court has ruled governments can weasel out of paying women the same as men in the civil service by saying ” we’d love to but we can’t afford it”. There’s something to be up in arms about!

Hell this is still a country where asinine discussions about women as nurturers and men as providers can take place on the website of an INTELLECTUAL magazine like WALRUS. There were a few moments here when I’d have thought I was on the editorial pages of the SUN.

Forget the women doctors, lawyers, accountants, professors, judges and women who have climbed over the glass ceiling for a minute. Few men or women get those jobs.

Until real wage parity for the big pool of female working stiffs takes place nothing is really going to change. Robert, you want to level the playing for field for men and women? Get us all a fully funded national daycare program and wage parity. Unionize retail, and get the biggest employer of women to pony up some of the wages and benefits unions won for women in the civil service. Push Parliament to make it legally impossible for big companies go to court and throw out equal pay for work of equal value rulings.

According to Stat Canada over 77% of women in Canada between the age of 25 to 54 now work outside the home for wages that, on AVERAGE in my 30 years of working have risen from 64% of what men make on average to 73% on the dollar. That ‘s a whole lot of women working for not a whole lot of dough with spotty, expensive daycare. Whoopee.

By the way I live in Winnipeg, not Toronto, I’m a proud feminist, a proud Canadian and the proud aunty of a niece who recently graduated with a minor in Women’s Studies. Oh yeah and I work, like most of the women I know from the PHDs to the estheticians at the spa because we need the money.

What, only men should be able to initiate divorce proceedings? I think that kind of thinking proves beyond any doubt we remain a country in desperate need of Women’s Studies programs.

so many points missed here. and so much animosity towards an opposing opinion, which was the point of commenting – free speech. I’m no troll – I am a formerly feminist male who POV has changed (as well as a veteran of the journalism industry). I just have an uncomfortable opinion. The key points of which are:

- the genders are not equal. woman can bear and nurture children. men cannot. this automatically gives women extraordinary power, the greatest power there is. the invention of birth control and the feminist revolution that followed in it’s wake increased that power. what greater power can there be beyond controlling procreation, the birth of children? it’s the greatest power, and greatest responsibility there is, though the conventional feminist position is to see it as a burden, an inconvenience even – an obstacle to ‘equality’ with men. As soon as men have wombs and breasts we can talk equality. There is no ‘male hegemony” over children. Women can choose to have children or not – and with the advent of artificial conception techniques, without the involvement of a man. Men have no similar power. That’s inequality.

- in canada, the majority of marriages fail and 81% of divorce proceedings are initiated by women. many studies corroborate the fact that women seek divorce more often than men (the lowest estimate I can find is around 66%). I am debunking the myth that men walk out on marriages, leave the family to neglect. Women clearly control the dissolution of families. This is an empirical fact. I only cite my own personal experience, and observations of my peer group as anecdotal evidence to further explain and support my position. my point is that women are leading the charge in the breakdown of families, not men. That is power.

- Divorce laws are biased against men, who are obliged to pay formula support and generally do not become the custodial parent. so where the ‘patriarchal hegemony’ fits into this, I do not know. I don’t see my kids, I pay so my wife can work and have a nanny, this is the situation for the dozens (literally) of divorced fathers I know, and I hear no opposing stories about jilted women – none. So much for “Male hegemony”. Indeed, as my (female) divorce lawyer has said to me, the laws are changing because “a generation who grew up without fathers have become lawyers and changed the laws to ensure fathers have access to their children”. Inequality indeed!

- regarding work place infidelity, my point is that women now have an equal opportunity to be self-interested and adulterous jerks. I would argue that women have a distinct advantage in using sexual power in the workplace, because if men attempt to exercise some sexual power, it’s called “sexual harassment”.

- Abuse against male spouses is purported to not exist, but it does and is not enforced. People don’t even blink. Here’s a good example of this dynamic. Tiger Woods is an adulterous louse. But how is it ok, that Elin his wife beat him unconscious with a Golf club? How is that not battery? Reverse the genders in this story. How is Elin any different than OJ Simpson? Because she didn’t finish the job? Because she’s a woman and gets special treatment?

This is a microcosm of the power inequalities that play themselves out everyday. Women batter men too. They just do it with immunity, apparently. I guess Elin had a right to beat Tiger unconscious.

So many myths surrounding gender and power and divorce and workplace equity, and I am merely debunking. Also imposing an alternative point of view, and playing devils advocate with the ‘sacred cow’ of women’s studies. And the palestinian metaphor was a cheeky joke, and if you don’t get that, what can I say! But I do indeed see many ways in which the oppressed have become oppressor in gender relations.

I could go on and on. Let’s through the environmental argument – broken families are increasing our carbon footprint, because we have fewer people per dwelling. We used to be a species where multiple generation lived in a single home together. One parent families are the norm. In this, divorce and single parent households are a “luxury” afforded to the decadent rich who care not about the environment (Canada being the wealthiest society in the history of the human race, arguably).

As for subsidized daycare, well, I think the point is that a “parent” is the right person to raise young children. If we further institutionalize the broken ‘zero parent” family, is this good for society? How?

For all the alleged “good” of the feminist revolution, there is an equal amount of bad, and men have become victims in many regards. The need to debunk myths and present an opposing position (and one more articulate and reasoned that the NPs) is clear. Free speech indeed. The Walrus is a forum for debating ideas and issues. The breakdown of the family and inequalities of the genders need to be discussed in this forum!

Why is it always social conservatives who confuse “criticizing dumb ideas” with “fear of different points of view”? No one here is denying the National Post or anyone else the right to voice and argue their positions on various political and cultural issues. But stupid positions deserve criticism, and the National Post editorial in question was exquisitely stupid.

“so many points missed here. and so much
animosity towards an opposing opinion,
which was the point of commenting – free
speech.”

Why do so many people assume “free speech” means that any and all speech is worthwhile? Some “speech” is silly. You have a right to say it, but expect to get your butt kicked, not because you’re a brave voice of dissent against leftist orthodoxy, but because you’re making specious generalizations and dubious claims.

More precisely, you’re making wild generalizations from your own experiences, and drawing dubious inferences from questionable statistics. Instead of recognizing your mistakes, you keep repeating yourself, and confusing criticism with personal animosity.

Some examples …

“the genders are not equal”.

… what you mean here is that men and women are not the same. No one disputes that. The trouble is that there are systematic inequalities in how men and women are treated (in law, the marketplace, political affairs, popular culture) that cannot be justified without making a host of implausible and often stupid assumptions.

A lot of what feminist scholarship does is show how implausible, controversial, and sometimes distasteful those assumptions often are—assumptions like, for instance, the dubious determinism you keep pushing with your “biology is destiny” musings about the tender nurturing women watching the kids and hearth while the big strong men are out hunting mammoth. Others here have clearly explained to you the serious problems with that view, but you don’t seem to be listening.

Now, do some of the legal and political solutions inspired by feminist concerns occasionally lead to perverse outcomes? Sure, but that’s a fact of life in law and politics, not a failure of feminism.

Example: divorce laws have almost certainly been used on occasion by vindictive women to shaft innocent men. You make it sound as if such problems are endemic, but the evidence you cite just doesn’t support this sort of conservative fear-mongering (i.e. that a rash of power-hungry man-hating feminists are exploiting newfound legal and political opportunities to crush and emasculate men).

“in canada, the majority of marriages
fail and 81% of divorce proceedings
are initiated by women.”

Suppose we accept your statistics here (what, precisely, are your sources?). So what? You blithely equate divorce with “dissolution of families,” and broadly hint that, inspired by feminism, women are trashing otherwise-happy living situations and hurting little innocent children. But the figure you cite (again, without a clear source) says nothing of the sort.

Nor, for that matter, have you debunked any purported myth about deadbeat men. How about separations, or unmarried couples where the dad abuses his partner and his children, or simply walks out? How prevalent are those sorts of pathological relationships? Aren’t you interested in those figures?

“Abuse against male spouses is purported
to not exist, but it does and is not
enforced. People don’t even blink.”

No one “purports” any such thing. This is an old canard, and it’s still silly. No, it’s pernicious: the overwhelming amount of serious violence in society is perpetrated by men on men, and men on women. Pretending otherwise, or downplaying that fact (“look, men are occasionally brutalized by female partners!”) is disingenuous. Pretending that no one cares about women abusing male partners is also dishonest (Tiger Woods as your exemplary case here? are you *serious*? If Woods were to press charges, do you seriously believe they wouldn’t be investigated, or that many people would approve of brutal marital violence so long as a woman is the perpetrator and the man is a dog? That’s just silly).

Carolyn,

You already have the answer. The choice between “Parent” or “CEO” is an acknowledgement that both are full time roles, particularly if you are a “mother”, and then it’s all encompassing, 24 hours a day of physical and mental stress.

And that is my point – the bill of goods that women have been sold is that you can be CEO and “Mother”. In our post-feminist society, women are not only given every opportunity to become professionals, they are virtually obliged to do so. However, there is not only zero training for traditional roles of “mother” or “housekeeper” (our oral traditions are gone) they are shunned as being vestiges of male hegemony to be looked down upon in a post-feminist context.

I have seen too many close acquaintances go from being a successful professional (lawyer, MBA, Editor, Sales VP etc) to either a suicide, a psychiatric patient or a divorcee after having a child to think that all is ok.

And that is the conversation I think needs to happen, in public spaces. But it is absolutely taboo to discuss it in the media. The “myths” prevail.

Robert, just to chime in and say, I applaud you for saying so eloquently what many don’t even bother saying any more, because asking people to consider an uncomfortable opinion, the entire liberal and open-minded intellectual becomes as close-minded and intolerant as the bigots they claim to loath.

I was going to write a letter to the editor, but this post is good enough for me. As someone who took women’s studies courses in university, their inaccuracies are highly apparent.

@ Melanie and Robert, I have to say that while there are problems in our systems, we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Women’s Studies has done a lot of good for both genders. The most significant issue that comes to mind is simply distinguishing sex from gender, debunking crippling stereotypes (that used to be thought of as biological) and allowing gender to be more fluid in one’s identity.
There’s still work to do in that regard — all the more reason to continue the work.

Great post, Walrus!

The Notional Pest seems to be making a last-ditch attempt to coddle right-wing readers as its bottom-line and ponderous rhetoric sink it ever lower each day. I hope that this Kaf/Kay-esque diatribe will soon be available on parchment, suitable for framing and hanging on the wall of our favourite watering holes.

What a funny example of masculine hysteria you provide. A few sweeping generalizations, a few badly concealed examples that are clearly re-framed anecdotes brough on for the sole purpose of backing up a weak assertion, namely, that you’d agree that Feminism somehow earned the blame for a society still out of balance.
So if I understand correctly, you’re claiming to be a man of learning (of letters, even!), but you’re glossing over the role of women over 10 millenia as regulated passivity that made things better?
Furthermore you reveal a ridiculous bias in favour of marriage without citing the many alienations to women’s (human) rights in the context of social and marital norms. Do you understand how backward you and the NP article appear, in light of the problems that were precursor to the emergence of a Feminist movement? Or do you think that rolling back the clock to a time before that phase of ethical reform first argued for universal suffrage?
I do not know how you conduct yourself as an academic, but your missives above indicate you are not currently a strong student of history nor of sociology, in spite of your claims.
Feminist theory and activism are still important sources of tools and strategies for women and men (and those for whom such terms solve nothing), useful in addressing matters of gender, economic and political freedoms and abuses. Women’s Studies has been a meaningful and imperfect response to institutional problems, using and refining critical theory from many progressive movements. I sincerely wish it was offered earlier in the educational system, alongside Home Economics.

I for one, applaud you for finding anything eloquent in Robert’s message. I think he’s a fraud (Marxist, Gay/Lesbian studies? Where? The Frasier Institute?), but I can’t offer a citation, just a lack of consideration in his argument.
There’s nothing terribly sophisticated nor eloquent about re-hashed attacks on those who argued for the rights of Women over the priviledged status of Men in a society that was, is still negotiating the effects of Colonial conquest. A legacy of unequal trade – unpaid or underpaid labour, indentured servitude and repression of the ambitions of people who want better circumstances for their families – this was colonial rule – this was (and still is for many) the rule of law for married women.
All the above attacks on Feminism/Women Studies seem wilfully ignorant of any problems predating the movement and educational project. Nothing was wrong? Feminists made it all up? Made things worse?
In a pig’s eye.

I agree with your critique but not with your solution. Women ARE having a hard time doing it all because when they have kids they realize just how unequal they’re supposedly progressive marriages are. The solution isn’t to throw women back into the kitchen, it’s for men to pick up the slack, or to (gasp) stay home with the kids. But we’re not there yet which means that feminists haven’t gone far enough.

Oh my. Well aside from the fact that you need a new therapist, no, feminism was not to blame for your wife cheating on you, or leaving you. The same thing could have happened had she stayed home and been a “traditional” housewife. There’s some validity to the point that there hasn’t been enough attention paid to men’s roles in a post-feminist society but the way to fix that isn’t by going backwards or spouting long disproved steretypes. If “men are the Palestinians” then they are by far the richest, most powerful and most in control oppressed folks I’ve ever met. Personal pain can cause even the most rational folks to embrace faulty beliefs.

That editorial was a mess of bitterness and bad reporting. Thank you for this succinct denouncement.

Refreshingly thoughtful and intelligent rebuttal, well done!

But the real test: do you have the guts to publish this in your print magazine?

While most of what the post said is a joke. Everything about Womens Studies, anyways. I have to say that having watched to guys go through divorces in the past 3 years, that, men are treated differently in the courts. Women are given preferential treatment in the name of expediency. Men are routinely kept away from their kids in a divorce and the only way for some to make ends meet is to make a deal with their ex’s. I don’t think this was caused by Womens Studies, min you, but I do think it bears addressing.

[...] One particular publication feud is worth mentioning: the National Post vs. the Walrus. [...]

Well said. Those who benefit the most from structural inequities seem the most unable to perceive or acknowledge them.

Personally as a guy, I’m thrilled I had the chance to take women’s studies during my brief foray into post-secondary ed.

I’m sorry, are we reading the same post? The one that rails against work place equality and claims feminists hate men? That one?

This is ridiculous that we even still have to have this conversation.

Mens studies? Have you looked at the lit canon recently? Or, say History? Or Political Science?

this national post article was terrible. terrible not just because of the opinions expressed, but because of the influence of this paper to form public opinion, opinion which influences policy, and decision making. we have lost a great deal of feminist organizations due to funding cuts, as well as threats to cut women studies dpartments. this article is simply not acceptable. for my take on our kickation.ca blog look here : http://www.kickaction.ca/node/3280

Oh snap!

Jen,

The tone set by the initiator(s) of a discourse sets the tone for everyone else that subsequently participates. Beyond the ‘facts’ and ‘arguments’, I don’t think neither Robert nor myself is throwing the baby out with the bath water. If you read closely, and pretend that the voice you imagine Robert to have is one that is calm and patient, you (and David) might read that we are just trying to have a reasonable conversation. The true meaning of intellectual freedom and openmindedness is willingness to sit down and consider that long held assumptions are wrong, and that ironically, that doesn’t always mean that the values we champion are being thrown out ‘with the bath water’ just because one has been asked to simply reconsider the possibilities.

Condescendingacademic:

My sources for Divorce data are Statistics Canada and the Law Society of Upper Canada (who put the percentage of women appellants in divorces at 74% and 81% respectively). Is that good enough for you? Lawyers and courts keep records of such things. Pretty easy to find if you look (Google?).

Qualifying my comments as “anecdotal” informed the reader that this is personal memoir and not empirical science. And in open, free, discussions such as this, memoir is a valid source of information. I mention it because, as I have learned since the breakdown of my own marriage, I am a cliche, a statistic, run of the mill divorced dad. I know of no divorces initiated by the male partner. I know of no divorced men who have their children living with them. Many of my divorced dad acquaintances contend with “constructive disaffection” which is the current legalese for pernicious and deliberate attempts by the mother to disrupt the father-child relationship. This is my experience. So go get bent dude (or dudette).

I do not wonder whether or not abusive husbands exist, or that most violence is society is perpetrated by men, or that there are dead-beat dads, or any statistics about that. It’s true and is so entrenched in our social consciousness (Homer Simpson being the iconic father-figure in our culture today says a lot) it doesn’t warrant mentioning.

What I do object to is that there is no opposing dialogue, and that the “facts” (stats can) and real lived experience of divorce as I have discovered them to be, are not only absent from public forums, but are taboo to discuss, as all your responses make very clear. This is (as the more astute of you may have gleaned) why I use the “Palestinian” metaphor to describe the male situation in gender politics, because, like Israel, Feminism and Women’s Studies’ right to exist are beyond question, and to suggest otherwise goes against orthodoxy. However, Condescendingacademic, The Walrus is a forum for discussion of important ideas, not a place for pat answers and assumptions shared with other who think just like you, and if this isn’t worth discussing, I don’t know what is.

The Tiger Woods example was deliberately provocative, I admit. But it makes a point. She beat him unconscious with a golf club, and no mention of this being in any way inappropriate has been made – a tacit acknowledgement that he deserved it perhaps? If any man in any domestic dispute committed this kind of violence, what are the chances that would be ignored? If Elisa Cuthbert was getting it on with half of Hollywood, and Dion Phaneuf beat her with a Hockey Stick, do you think that would be glossed over? Never.

And give me credit for accomplishing my goal – to get people discussing this and thinking about it. I am not “anti-feminist”. In fact, part of my personal animosity stems for the fact that I am really not your typical guy in the traditional gender role equation, and I’ve been educated in a feminist context. (David – “Marxist Feminist Gay Lesbian Studies” was the joke name the *Professors* gave to film studies when I was a student – and god, as soon as you started blathering on about “colonial rule” you really started to sound like a Film Studies prof…yawn). I got royally shafted by, yes, a power mad and vindictive women who blamed my problems for the breakdown, only for me to discover years later that her infidelity was the real reason, and after going through extensive counseling in which I learned that by not being an alpha-male cro-magnon daddy-knows-best, I alienated her affections, and she went off to get banged by her boss while I stayed home with baby. So go get doubly bent.

And thanks melanie. You are right about the closed-mindedness. A few folds here need to read (or re-read) Kuhn’s *Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, as many are clinging all to closely to ideas as unassailable truths. Like Condesencingacademic (who’s handle says it all)

Hi Melanie,
What are you doing saturday night? My ad reads “Semi-bitter divorced dad with difficult and outspoken opinions seeks kind post-post-feminist woman for game of naked scrabble”. You in?

Here here Jeremy,
The effects of reliable birth control on our society are tangible. I am really just a scared little boy who realizes that women have all the power, and have no need of men anymore. I need a hug :(

Yeah, we’ve given too much attention to the Post’s opinions as it is. No one reads it – it’s circulation numbers are dreadful, and much of it is free distribution. CanWest is dealing with bankruptcy, and the Post has been loosing $2 million a month since Conrad Black launched it.

And geez, if this debate keeps up, lefty intellectuals might have the same effect on the Post that the Ayatollahs had on “Satanic Verses”.

There is a contradiction here – I know you’re not arguing along the lines of Robert, but how can one argue, as Robert did, that years of biology are being undone by the current restructurations to the marriage and family systems, and then denounce the fact that divorce-courts are gender-biased?

Feminism and gender studies are actually the tools parents need in order to contest this biased gender system. I mean, all the courts are doing is reifying the idea that parenting ‘naturally’ befalls women. This, in turn, is an idea that most strand of feminism challenge.

[...] Thankfully, the counter arguments are still going on. See other reactions to this editorial: The Walrus Blog, Maclean’s On Campus, Rabble.ca, and Metro News (written by former McClung’s [...]

I’m glad that the solution to the injustice of women having to balance careers with housework and child rearing is for men to perform housework and rear children. Problem? Solved!

Please let me know when feminism has made it ok for me to (gasp) balance my career ambitions with domestic responsibilities. I’m ready.

did you guys listen to the panel discussion/debate that was on the cbc about this issue a couple weeks ago on the current with anna maria tremonti? the national post person kept trying to argue the point that lower enrollement of women’s studies courses in whatever formation is reflective of the lack of interest in the course. she was also arguing really strongly that kids would go to school in higher education institutions, take women’s studies (which she also seemed to infer or blatantly say was a waste of times but not in those words) and be brain washed into political action or giving up their inquisitive nature and question what was being taught but accept everything that was taught as facts. she made people who study women’s studies seem like a klan or something. seriously. i was hoping at that point that other kids weren’t listening to the program right then because there was a lot of misinformation from this np writer (i’m sure she was the np writer…if it wasn’t her it was…actually i’m going to go and try to find the clip on cbc’s website so you can hear it for yourself:
here’s the debate
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/201001/20100112.html

and here’s the follow up from someone who knows something about an actual women’s studies course

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/201001/20100114.html

okay for al lthe great points you have robert, i find this part of your comment (yes i am just nitpicking)highly suspect, not because i don’t believe that she didn’t beat him with his/her golf stick, but unconsious? “She beat him unconscious with a golf club”…how do you know that? anyways i don’t give the media points for not covering that part of the story (which if they did they would have lost their whole gains with focusing on tiger’s infidelities), but i was definately thinking about her actions in their relationship and that incident and i saw a lot of young people commenting online who although making very opposite side points about both of them (if she was black tiger would be dead. tiger shouldn’t have messed with a white girl. swedish chicks know how to use a club, etc)there were people actually mentioning her assaulting tiger with the golf stick. the public still doesn’t know all the facts about what happened. it would be better if there was a more general approach to these issues but mostly it always focuses on women. i hope the sphere for that perspective changes.

“Feminism and gender studies are actually the tools parents need in order to contest this biased gender system.”

No, self-respect and respect for every human being is all parents need to instill into their children. (The kind of respect I don’t see very much here for humans just like you but simply have a different take with just as valid/invalid the arguments we are all prone to make.)

Here comes the dismissible anecdotal/ethnographic data point:

I was brought up with all the ‘you’re a girl, in a visible minority group, you won’t ever make it’ spiel all my life, how I need to work harder to get less than what my male peers will be able to achieve, and I simply didn’t buy it. My success as a human being is not based on my salary or my ability to be ‘free’ from child-rearing responsibilities (hello day care), and if I wanted to compete i would be just as good as my male peers, but I’m not here to prove anything to anyone. Raising kids with ‘feminism’ might terrify them more than actually empower them (just playing devil’s advocate, asking you to consider the flip side).

I much rather wish that my parents taught me that sometimes life isn’t fair, but one should assess one’s own accomplishments on one’s own merit. Listen to others, but do not be afraid to question authority. Be humbly confident, and acknowledge that no one ‘knows it all’. I had to learn that myself and the hard way, but I am better for it.

(Feminism does not automatically produce good parents, just saying.)

As for your comment about years of biology being undone, and gender-biased nature of the courts… you confuse nature with nurture. We did not design the human sex, while the courts are entirely a human construct. If you tease out the meaning behind the jargon you’re using, you might still have a valid argument, but don’t just take terminology at face value, presuming they are unproblematic truths that cannot be contested.

Peace.

Here’s a mind-opening exercise for those of you still hanging around and don’t think I’m a troll. Didn’t they teach us all about critical reading in our post-secondary/graduate studies? Or was that really just following the whims of a prof that we all thought were smarter and better than us, so we’ll go with the ideas they fed us?

Read the article below. The survey… let’s not get too meta and presume it was reasonably well done and the data, taking into account that it was a business heavy demographic they surveyed. Given the facts, they needn’t draw the conclusions that they did.

Why Workplace Equality Initiatives Aren’t Helping Women:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/why_women_still_arent_equals_i.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

My unpopular thoughts/reflections include:
- if child-rearing is the (obvious) number one cause for lack of female leadership in the business world, what solution can we reasonable present that does not disturb the natural time that a child needs to spend with their parent (this includes the father, not just the mother)?
- is it reasonable to expect an entire industry founded on the values and logic of market-driven economy to change to accommodate such human relationship needs?
etc.

These are real questions, not facetious nor flippant. If you don’t ask questions how can you find an answer?

You might like this article better, about how women in the middle east are aspiring business women and entrepreneurs, with the ‘twist’ that they aren’t happy with traditional corporate settings and want ‘meaning’ in their lives:
http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hewlett/2010/02/dubais_young_women.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

What they don’t talk about is what ‘meaning’ means to these women. From our perspective, we probably think it means making a difference in someone else’s live, improving the lives of those less fortunate than us, but imagine if for some of these women, they find meaning in having a family, and a close relationship with their children. I don’t expect the HBR to write about that; not the content for their target audience after all.

What I never understood is how if, even if you are bigoted and short-sighted enough to believe that Canadian women are either perfectly equal in every opportunity or, conversely, that they aren’t and that’s the way things should stay – what about immigration? What about the globalized world? Surely the same people ignorant enough to think Canadian women have got it made or who think they should thank their lucky stars for being ‘given’ the vote or that at least they don’t have to wear burqas or have their genitals mutilated, surely these people can understand that new immigrants might have differing views? That thousands of new Canadians might affect our gender utopia (snort)? Or that Canadian women who must travel for work or even pleasure are affected by countries not quite as enlightened as ours?

Anyway, it boggles the mind, and I don’t doubt that the Post just wanted the publicity. But as this entry points out quite well, I doubt they would have dared to runs something similar about those whiny Chinese and their bitching about head tax, or natives and their constant need to actually acknowledge their history and prejudices against them. As always, there’s special venom for women as a group.

But in other, scarier misogyny news, there’s this – Marc Lepine, Criminal or Folk Hero. A blog dedicated to a mass murderer. Someone get the Post to hire this guy!

http://marclepine.blogspot.com/

“How many folk-heroes were first branded criminals, later to be recognized as genuine heroes?Although perhaps a criminal, could not Lepine fit also the description and achieve hero status some day? For now, it is important to celebrate St-Marc and December 6th as a date because, if you really want feminists to lose control, this is the surest way. To make him a martyr and a saint on next December 6th is not only to be truthful and accurate, it is a necessary step on the road to victory in this gender war. So, make it publicly known; it is everyone’s responsability to highlight the event somehow! The fact that many acknowledge the importance of this day already tells a lot to the media. “

To be fair, she would have had a lot more trouble doing it as a housewife some time back. Chances are she wouldn’t have had her own money, except whatever allowance her husband gave her. She’d probably have more children, as that is the greatest thing a woman could accomplish, being a good mother (not to mention hormonal birth control was apt to kill her). Hell, not only would she have stayed, he could have legally raped her as he pleased – marital rape didn’t exist as a concept, legally, in Canada until the EARLY 1990S. Not 1900s, 1990s. Is there any way to interpret this except to acknowledge that, once married, a woman’s body was no longer her property (if it ever was, post-puberty)?

Sorry, more crazy backwards feminism. How long have things been equal, again?

How sad that people don’t understand that the same stereotypes and inequalities holding women back are constraining men as well. They really can’t see a connection between biased divorce courts and women forced to put their lives on hold to start a family? Between stereotyping women as brood mares or bridezillas and not giving men custody? If people still overlook potential employees who could be on ‘the mommy track’ or refuse to provide adequate, paid parental leave for fathers, if stay at home dads are still looked down upon (by either gender) and female bosses are power hungry bitches, nothing will ever change. It takes both sides.

Way to go, Walrus!!!!

As I said, Robert, suppose we accept your statistics. So what? I notice you don’t answer that question, so perhaps you are learning something here.

“in open, free, discussions such as this,
memoir is a valid source of information.”

Of course it’s “valid,” in the sense that it is your sincerely reported experience. So what?

“give me credit for accomplishing my goal – to
get people discussing this and thinking about it.”

You’ve done no such thing. You’ve tried to hijack a thread about stupid claims in the Nat’l Post re: women’s studies programmes. You started by broadly hinting that those programmes are somehow responsible for the fact that you and all your guy friends are getting shafted by your vindictive ex-wives.

That’s sad, I’ll grant you, and the law should be more attentive to your plight. But again, so what? The point here is that your specious generalizations and dubious claims about the pernicious effects of women’s studies have been shot down because they were dumb claims, not because you’re the victim of nasty feminist group-think.

At least you no longer seem to be making the sorts of claims that got you in trouble, so that’s progress, I suppose.

Some people who end up heroes start off as villains. (e.g Nelson Mandela)

[...] hostile approach and gross misunderstanding of the topics covered are unsurprising and similar to many other critics of Women’s Studies.  But in my [...]

[...] The Walrus said it best, [...]

Thanks a lot for the post, it opens the eyes of the publicity to the question that still remains an issue in the modern society. Everyone has the right to speak and be heard, no matter if you are a man or a woman, support the left wing or right wing.