Warren Farrell
American educator, activist and author of seven books on men's and women's issues.
When birth control pills were available in Europe but not in the United States, American women created an uproar about how the unwillingness to make the pill available showed a contempt for the lives of women… When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released birth control pills with high dosages of hormones that were later found to be unnecessarily high, they were attacked for not caring about women enough to do the necessary tests.
If an employer had to pay a man one dollar for the same work a woman could do for 59 cents, why would anyone hire a man?
It is important for a father who feels pushed away [by the mom] to say, in effect, When you do that, I feel unwanted as a father, or I feel my rough-housing is not bad parenting; it's my contribution to helping our child take risks. Women cannot hear what men do not say.
The corporate Catch-22: Don't be flexible, lose good women; be flexible, lose good women... A company listening to women's desires for [flexibility and therefore] fewer promotions, giving fewer promotions to women, and then being sued for giving fewer promotions to women. Yiddish has a word for this: chutzpah.
Women-in-jeopardy movies are, in essence, the updated versions of men dying to save the princess from the dragon to earn her love. They are modern-day training films for teaching women to select the best protectors while weeding out the rest. And then we call the woman ‘victim’ and the man ‘powerful.’
Together, we came to understand how we beg men to express feelings, but then when men do express feelings, we call it sexism, male chauvinism, or backlash.
When mining… and other death professions are discussed in feminist publications, they are portrayed as examples of the male power system, as male-only clubs. However, when Ms. Magazine profiled female miners, the emphasis was on how the woman was ‘forced’ to take a job in the mines because it paid the best, and how taking such a job was the only way she could support her family.
How, then, can patriarchy be defined? Perhaps it can best be defined as the male area of dominance, responsibility, and subservience in a culture, reinforced by both sexes for the purpose of serving both sexes’ survival needs. How can matriarchy be defined? As the female area of dominance, responsibility, and subservience in a culture, reinforced by both sexes for the purpose of serving both sexes’ survival needs.
Male Message 1 is subconsciously experienced by the boy like this: ‘Some girls in my class already look like movie stars. If they wanted me as much as I want them, then I’d know I was okay. They are genetic celebrities. I am a genetic groupie.’
Women's liberation and the male midlife crisis were the same search--for personal fulfillment, common values, mutual respect, love. But while women's liberation was thought of as promoting identity, the male midlife crisis was thought of as an identity crisis.
Test this out on yourself. Imagine that for a month you have neither had your garbage picked up nor an opportunity to read about new anthropological discoveries. Which would you pay more money to remedy? A society that functions effectively adjusts the pay until the supply matches the need. Failure to make these adjustments not only leaves streets filled with garbage, but also leaves unemployment lines filled with anthropologists.
Men give the same lines to different women for the same reason women wear the same perfume for different men; we all try the things that work.
We are at a unique moment in history -- when a woman’s body is affected, we say the choice is hers; but when a boy’s body is affected, we say the choice is not his -- the law requires our 18 year old sons to register for the draft, and therefore potential death-if-needed.
On oilrigs men who only work an 8-hour day are contemptuously called nine-to-fivers. In stark contrast, women are more likely not to take risks, even when the risks are minimal. What's the message to our sons? Our praise of our sons when they risk physical danger teaches them that a willingness to be physically abused creates love. Abuse-as-love? Yes.
Is loving men contradictory to feminism? Hardly. Every true feminist, I believe, is deepened and matured by being also a masculinist--a person who understands the male search for equality and approval as the male experiences it. As is every masculinist deepened by being a feminist (a person who understands the female search for equality and approval as the female experiences it.
There is what might be called a Catch-22 of hazardous occupations: The more hazardous the job, the more men; the more men, the less we care about making the job safer. The Catch-22 of hazardous occupations creates a 'glass cellar' which few women wish to enter. Women are alienated not just out of the fear of being hurt on the job, but by an atmosphere that can make a hazardous job more hazardous than it needs to be.
The irony of primary parent laws is that on the one hand feminists were arguing for women’s equal rights to jointly-created career assets that emanated from the male financial womb, but arguing against men’s equal rights to jointly-created children that emanated from the woman’s child-bearing womb.
If we penalize mothers for denial of visitation time we must also penalize fathers who don’t show up for visitation time. The issue is not fathers’ rights to visitation time, but both parents obligations to their children. The issue is how to make both parents real parents despite what parenting was never designed to deal with -- divorce.
Both sexes work on their lines before they appear onstage. His lines are a lifetime of work; her introductory 'line' is her appearance--or her lack of lines. Just as careers give men power, so beauty gives women power. But just as the comparison between herself and the most beautiful women makes a woman feel powerless, so the comparison between himself and the most successful men makes a man feel powerless.
Gay sex meant two hours of sexual pleasure in exchange for two hours of sexual pleasure. Heterosexual sex meant two hours of sexual pleasure in exchange for a lifetime of responsibility. Heterosexuality was a bad deal! The fear behind homophobia was that no one would be providing for the next generation. Everybody would be having fun. Thus fun became a sign of immaturity; hedonism in many forms became illegal.