Men & sexual politics: Towards a profeminist practice
By Bob Pease
Dulwich Centre Publications, 1997. 178 pp., $32
Review by Barry Healy
I approached this book with a little trepidation. My fear was that it might be some sort of wanky, New Age "men's empowerment" book propagating a thinly disguised hatred of women in the style of Robert Bly's 1990 championing of the "wild man".
As it happens, Pease is deeply critical of what he calls the "mythopoetic" school within the men's movement (Bly, Biddulph et al). Moreover, he casts an astute eye over many strands of the movement and seeks to build a pro-feminist men's movement that drives towards fundamental social and political change.
The main drawback is that the book lacks a central focus and so has much of the scattered feel of a hastily collected primer or introduction to a broader debate. Pease's great strength is that he has been an active participant in, and commentator upon, men's groups for over 25 years.
The wide-ranging movement he comments on includes both progressive and reactionary elements. It covers men's support groups, men's ritual healing groups, therapy groups for violent men, programs for boys in schools, men's health groups, father's rights groups, courses in adult education and academia and pro-feminist men's social action groups.
Here, he has collected various writings from over that period, from a vast array of contexts, and presented them along with introductions and end pieces to bring his insights up to date. Some are essays, some interviews taken from XY magazine, some papers presented to conferences and one an outline of how to run a patriarchy awareness workshop for men.
The tone swings from political polemic through personal reminiscence to the academic theory of teaching social work education.
The sections I found most interesting were those in which he debates the "personal growth" aspects of the men's movement. It has little to do with freeing women, he writes, "and much to do with increasing the well-being and furthering the self-interests of men ... Such male liberation can co-exist with the most ferocious subjugation of women."
He describes the writings of what he calls the "mythopoetic" thinkers as "misleading". "I believe that to ignore the outside world, to ignore issues of gender or racial injustice and the context of our lives and experiences, is to ignore the possibilities for personal and cultural transformation."
He doesn't oppose men attempting to deal with the personal pain created by living in our alienated society. However, such personal healing "is not enough on its own". He believes that the feminist movement has offered men the possibility of alternative relationships with women and alternative ways of living our lives.
Some men have argued that men are discriminated against because women and migrants groups have government funding for their health problems. In fact, Dr Alex Proudfoot took a case to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, arguing that point in 1993.
Pease opposes their viewpoint. "Men gain short-term benefits in reproducing patriarchy and yet we pay heavy personal costs", he says. "Patriarchal masculinity is a health hazard."
These health consequences for men are a negative consequence of men's social power and privilege. "It is a strange twist to argue that, because men suffer the effects of power and privilege, they do not have power and privilege."
Pease is very well read on feminist theory; the list of references covers close to 20 pages. However, strangely for a proponent of radical social change, there is nothing on the history of patriarchy. A gaping hole in the bibliography is any work of the Marxist school.
Without a grasp of the history of the social structure of patriarchy, we could easily get confused in the struggle against it. A prime example is the "mythopoetic" school of men's liberation, which itself is a product of late 20th century capitalism.
"Constructions" of masculinity have varied greatly through the ages, according to the social, economic and political dictates of the times. Men in Cromwell's England were generally dour, non-self-expressive puritans — just the types required to complete a capitalist revolution which included the beheading of a king.
In Regency England, a century later, men cried "manly tears" and hugged and kissed each other openly. After the Indian Rebellion, when England realised that it could no longer afford to leave the administration of its empire in the hands of private companies, a "new" man was required — hence the development of Victorian morality.
Today, with the economy again being privatised, social life is also privatised and Victorian morality and public prudishness are shredding. Part of the decay of the old morality is due to the revolt of women and gays against their oppression and part is the accommodation of capitalism to new forms of production.
These new forms have demanded far looser family ties than in the past. Australia in particular has one of the most nomadic work forces in the world. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 60% of Australians move interstate every five years.
This requires greater individuality in the workplace and the home and demands far greater self-awareness and self-reliance. These pressures have created the personal growth book and workshop industries that tend to prey on people's insecurities. This is where the "mythopoetic" trend of men's liberation comes from.
Pease, a self-described proponent of "critical postmodern" theory developing a "pro-feminist ethic" possibly feels no need to engage with Marxism. However, if his project succeeds and a mass movement of men opposing patriarchy emerges, it may find this provocative book a useful starting point but insufficient for developing a truly revolutionary program.