In exchange for pockets: How feminism can also improve the male experience

 TW: This article contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please visit Samaritans. 

In her most recent book, “What about men?” Caitlin Moran has taken it upon herself to compassionately extend her own well-deserved platform, upon which she has articulated the plight of feminists with regards to women, to men. Having addressed everything from pubescent “feminine” bodily developments, to workplace sexism, the representation of women in the media, and her responsibilities as a feminist mother and wife, she is revisiting not only men’s role in feminism, but the stagnant male experience comparatively with the vastly more evolved female experience. 

Having all but solved (or at least opened up a space to discuss) ‘the woman problem’ in her published work thus far, ‘How to be a woman’ (2014) and ‘More than a woman’, (2020), Moran has recognised what any feminist with a lick of social observation has realised before her: in order for feminism to achieve its central aim—the equality of the sexes—in a society in which men and women cohabitate, men must necessarily be involved in the fight (against patriarchy, not each other). 

As Simone de Beauvoir asserted, “The point is not for women simply to take power out of men’s hands, since that wouldn’t change anything about the world. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power.”

Back in 2014, Moran, alongside other feminist (female) writers Camille Paglia, Hanna Rosin and Maureen Dowd, tried to dispel radical feminist misandrist misconceptions by refusing to allow men to fall into obsoletion. To quote Moran: “Are men obsolete? No! I won’t let you be you f*****s!”

Now, almost 10 years later, there is no doubt that feminism has come on in leaps and bounds. One need only look to statistics like the 56.5% participation level in higher education for women compared to 44.1% for men, or the female author dominated literary shortlists to prove it. We can vote (mostly), we can drive (mostly), hell, we can even show off our ankles if we really want to (again, mostly). 

However, we haven’t exactly been able to get all men on side. Not even an appeal to their own self-interest that feminism would, in fact, mean more quality time with their children, an equal distribution of labour at work and in the home, and a shared burden of bodily insecurities and mental health support has provided enough temptation for those claiming that “feminism has gone too far”. In fact, by stark contrast, many men are arguing that “It’s easier to be a woman than a man now”. 

Obviously, when you look at things like domestic abuse stats, (The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that 5% of adults (6.9% women and 3& men) aged 16+ experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2022) the double burden, the gender pay gap (typically women are paid 80 cents for every dollar earned by a full time working man) and not forgetting the orgasm gap, this seems absolutely ludicrous. 

However, when you take into account the incredible and empowering community of women supporting women, borne out of what Moran refers to as the “crowd sourcing of feminist resources”, and the sheer amount of progress women have made in the obtainment of rights, even compared with that of a 50s housewife, or access to contraception (recent regressive rulings against abortion in America aside), perhaps men do have a point. It’s true that men not only lack the same emotional support systems that women have access to, but there has been a severe lack of change in their position both personally and politically. 

The “glass ceiling” may still be there, sure, but at least women are in the building now to test out its stability for herself. Whereas men are not only still pacing the same four corners of the same glass-floored office, but they now have women daring to ogle at them from below as they pace—if you ask me, that’s certainly not going to help with things like the degendering of clothing. 

Rather than feminism having elevated women to a more equal footing with men so that we may be considered deserving of the same human rights as men, instead there seems to have been a resurgence of toxic, energy-drink consuming, bench-pressing, cat-calling alpha masculinity. I hyperbolise for comedic effect of course, but nevertheless, you get the picture. Whatever subculture term you want to use to refer to these men, alpha, sigma, incel, whatever, the problem they all share, whether they’re aware of it or not, is how to express their feelings when they’ve never been explicitly educated on healthy emotive communication. Aaaand, enter women. 

In part, this resurgence only seeks to emphasise the limitations of a nationalist, violence-associated, economically dominant version of masculinity. This version has been perpetuated by patriarchal rhetoric reinforced predominantly (although certainly not entirely), by centuries of male-orientated domination. However, the fact that (at least in men’s eyes), it’s easier and more socially acceptable for women to talk about menstruating and breastfeeding in public than it is for a man to open up about how he’s really holding up, suggests that something has gone fundamentally awry in the quest for gender equality. And as feminists have been proving their competency to do so for centuries, if there is a problem, then we must find the solution. 

Addressing the plight of feminism within a socialist context then—because what is the point of basic human rights without their equal distribution, if we are all to achieve equality of the sexes— it’s not enough to measure women’s progress in paychecks, stay at home dads and sex toys. At the same time, we must make clear to men something that perhaps we, as women, have come to take for granted. 

Men: your capability for emotional expression no more makes you weak, than it defines your gender identity. And, even if breaking a bloke’s nose does help you pull a lass, you’re going to struggle to maintain that relationship if you are fundamentally incapable of healthy adult communication with said lass. It seems only fair that we don’t gate keep this, I would consider, vital, piece of information with men; we are, as Moran points out, wearing their trousers after all. 

I’d like to establish at this point that, far from suggesting that it is solely women’s job to untangle men from the repressive patriarchal knot that they’ve found themselves in, for the sake of a pair of jeans with decent pockets, I really do think it could help us as well if we offer some of our “female” resources to men in return. Things like reciprocally emotive female friendship, therapeutic catch-up dates and, perhaps most importantly of all, soul-nourishing gossip, which have been our saving graces throughout centuries of patriarchal oppression. These stereotypically female attributes surely ought to be shared. 

What men need, is a gals supporting gals group chat, the subject matter of which goes beyond stupid memes and football stats (it’s a stereotype sure, but one I’ve found to be true multiple times over amongst my male friends). If only so men on dating apps can stop trauma dumping on us by outpouring their feelings about their emotionally distant relationship with their father, their lack of self esteem, and their crippling body dysmorphia, when all we were trying to do was ask them how they were as a courteous precursor to “your place, or mine?”

From a woman’s perspective, so unused do most men I’ve met seem to regular emotional check-ins—the aspects of many of my female friendships that I depend upon the most—that no wonder they feel angry and isolated, usurped by a feminist movement they don’t fully understand and repressed by a patriarchal society that was supposed to serve them. 

This is especially the case in a capitalist society which seeks to dehumanise and capitalise on male sexuality through the porn industry and hook-up culture, whilst creating an unsafe and condemnatory space for the women who try to exercise their own sexual liberty through a mimicry of this exploited male sexuality. At the same time, individual women, rather than the system as a whole, are subjected to the aggressive blame and hostility from these unfulfilled, emotionally repressed men—from whom they can’t even get a decent shag. 

One need only look at the onslaught of recent headlines to see the way in which although gender violence, female homicide, and male instigated rape are by no means class exclusive, the ones that thought they could get away with it are mostly the ones who have been able to buy the silence of the women whom’ve they’ve abused or assaulted. Ex-president Donald Trump buying the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels provides just one example amongst the hordes of Epsteins, O’Reillys and Weinsteins. 

The truth is, although suicide statistics are undeniably higher for men than women, the cause is often due to unaddressed mental health problems, which can be closely related to loneliness and economic circumstances, and which woman have fostered a much more open conversation about. For example, in 2015 one study found that for every 1% increase in unemployment there is a 0.79% increase in the suicide rate. There are other factors as well of course, such as the more violent suicide methods utilised by men than women, which are more likely to be successful. Nevertheless, it would be ignorant to dismiss the unequal economic circumstances that play a role in many men’s decision to take this final action. 

Furthermore, despite the higher number of male suicides, there are actually more female suicide attempts, which bears a relation to the higher rates of diagnosed depression amongst women. Once again, we see how it’s not that men are necessarily more inclined to have suicidal thoughts than women, but that we are all trapped in an impossible paradox: a patriarchal society which expects men to make money, and a capitalist society which makes it more difficult for some men than others to feed themselves and their families, nevermind having the time nor the inclination to seek mental health support. 

If you have to spend all of your time making money in order for your boss to get rich, how do you find the time to find a romantic partner, never mind hang out with your mates and talk about how you feel after a long 12 hour day? Thus, for working class men in particular, there exists neither the time nor the socially acceptable outlets for them to express their emotions. Whilst inarguably women also face exploitation and economic and social pressures, at least it’s more acceptable for us to complain about it to each other. Predominantly for men, therefore, our society has posited genuine feeling at a price far too costly for some. 

So, as women, we’re faced with the problem of how to provide men with the emotional support and education they so clearly need without sacrificing our own jobs, or regressing in our own partially liberated socio-political position as women under the weight of men’s emotional burden. Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. 

But I do know that, much like feminism is in men’s best interest to alleviate workplace exploitation (in 2018, Amanda Weinstein reviewed Census data from 1980 to 2010 that showed “how women’s participation in the workforce influences wage growth in approximately 250 U.S metropolitan areas”) it is in women’s best interest (by which I mean essential for their survival) to educate men in order to ensure that we have some strong man power left to back up our own positions. This is especially true given the rise of toxic male figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson who present misogyny as common sense fuelled by energy drinks. 

So-called feminist writers such as Louise Perry in ‘A Case Against the Sexual Revolution’ have recognised the dehumanisation of compulsive male sexuality readily exploited by those in search of profit in relation to ‘Death Grip Syndrome’, a quasi-medical term in which impotence occurs due to excessive masturbation leading to desensitisation, often closely linked to porn addiction. (p.155-6) 

However, although Perry criticises those ‘in search of profit’, remarkably, she seemingly maintains a view of these ‘few’ as individuals, as if a group of men are sat round in a boardroom deciding the best way to commodify sex and isolate men from the object of their sexual desire. As if this is something men would want, rather than placing the alienation of men not only from sex but indeed, as she so vulgarly puts it, also from the women themselves ‘who they’re ejaculating into’, within a systemic, capitalist framework. In other words, Perry fails to make the distinction between sensual, intimate and consensual sex in a loving and reciprocal relationship, and the sort of sex that is performative and made with the intention of profit, as two very distinct categories. 

Cleverly, Moran suggests that the solution to men’s isolation might be a socialist-feminist approach in order to form a community which values each other as individuals in both a sexual and non-sexual context which would be more likely to cultivate varied, loving, sexual relationships through stronger social networks and more open emotional communication.

Perry, on the other hand, chooses to condemn women for daring to exercise their sexual desire with the same freedom that men do, and suggests instead a mostly chaste courtship necessarily preceding a monogamous marriage, which teaches neither party anything about sexual pleasure, consent or respect and the role these things play in a healthy romantic relationship. But hey, at least they can produce babies within a legally binding financial framework. Who cares if the sex is shit, both partners are bored out of their minds and sexually unfulfilled, and potentially resorting to porn consumption, external sexual relationships or misogyny as a coping mechanism? 

Without making men’s issues a woman’s problem (goodness knows we’ve already got enough to deal with as it is), in order for feminism to be a helpful tool for everyone, it is absolutely essential that men feel as comfortable as women do (by and large) about realising the superficiality of, and consequently sacrificing, some of the more damaging stereotypes around their own gender representation. In other words: bring it in lads, let’s talk it out. 

Whilst it would be ignorant and quite frankly incorrect to deny (generic) male privilege, such as physical security in intimate, extraneous settings, less presumed parental responsibility and a greater sense of workplace authority, perhaps by extending the really, truly wonderful aspects of womanhood to men, they will in turn become more open and understanding of the benefits of gender equality for all (which will, most importantly, work in our favour).