The myth of male power Book

So I picked up The Myth of Male Power with one goal in mind. I wanted to hear about the female privileges that have been overlooked by feminists and society.

Now keep in mind, I'm not anti-feminist or anything like that. I've been interested somewhat in feminism ever since following a youtuber known as FeministFrequency. While I disagree with her views sometimes, I find them interesting to hear. (Plus, my girlfriend is also a feminist.) But my real concern came when I was on tumblr. There are so many social justice and feminist blogs out there and some of them almost seem to dismiss the concerns of men. Some will say that female privilege and misandry don't exist. While I do agree that there are certain rights that females lack and that there is a certain amount of sexism against women in society, nobody ever looks at the other side. Sure there were some situations where I wondered if it was better to be a woman. I can recall several times when a female has made a rape joke about me or about men and general saying something like "Watch out, I think she might rape you" or "If you got raped, you'd probably enjoy it." Yes, males rape females more than the other way around, but that's led to the trivialization of males getting raped. (Which is mostly done by other males.) Previously, I would've never considered anything such as men's rights before, but I realized that men almost never get any attention like women do.

So reading Warren Farrell's The Myth of Male Power was something that I was interested in. There were plenty of things that I felt were overlooked by society on a whole. I don't hear about men's rights very often and while many people will look down upon this because they believe the universe is somehow rigged in our favor, there were still things that I've always wanted to hear about. I'm not just talking about the obvious like the draft and whatnot, but other minor things that males have to face every day. When picking up this book, I had two things I wanted to see: facts and statistics. Warren Farrell does a great job with citing hundreds of different studies done on both genders and tackles several points such as psychology, financials, sex and societal pressures. He examines multiple sides of his issues and proposes a solution at the end of each chapter, often advocating some sort of socialization.

He opens up with talking about the draft for war. While this may seem outdated, even more so because this book is rather old, he does bring up a good point. If it was something which targeted females, it would be sexist. If it were something that targeted any ethnic group, it'd be racist. When it targets men, it's meant to be empowering. Those phrases such as "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" or "Man up" are ones often used to encourage such behavior, as if it's our social duty to always be strong protectors. This does put somewhat of an unnecessary stress on men and he brings up millions of examples throughout history not limited to the Vikings, Spartans, Christians and your everyday husband. In several societies, men were taught to become disposable and not fear death. They simply became cogs within the machine.

This relates to how he talks about the man's role as the provider to the household. While women can choose to have a job or be a stay at home mom, men only have one option it seems. Farrell gives several examples and cases of how this affects men in a negative way. Further down the book, there is a discussion about men's occupations within the best and worst jobs - different than the lowest-paying jobs. Warren Farrell cites some statistics showing that men did (and probably still do) occupy stressful jobs more often than women do and he later gives a hypothesis as to why this happens. Furthermore, he talks about the stress of unemployment, especially the unemployment of men who were once successful, because they tend to define their self-worth by their income. While men are often seen as being the "strong sex," he highlights the important and unfair pressures that his has on men's psychology and health.

A lot of these lead to the early death of men. Men are more likely to commit suicide. The suicide rate for men is six times higher than that of women, if I remember correctly. Farrell talks about the way gender roles affect this - men are pressured to bottle up their emotions and not express them. Men also die on the job a lot more. They hold more dangerous jobs than women such as firefighters, garbage collectors and police officers. The industrialization of men who need to support their wife and child also causes stress, leading to a shorter life span.

In the last third of the book, Warren Farrell describes the government as being a substitute husband for women. This covers more than just financial support after a divorce. It covers several injustices done throughout history done against men and in favor of women. In the first part about murder, he talks a lot about many cases and excuses that women have used to get less punishment for a violent crime such as murdering their husband. It shows how men are often sentenced unfairly to longer periods of time in prison and how much of male behavior was considered to be sexual harassment.

He also brings up dozens of social examples, some of which feel like he is generalizing. One of which that immediately caught my eye was the obligation to pay on dates. Since men are said to make more money, they pay for dates 10 times more often than women. But he brings up a counterpoint. When two women are on a date, does one say "Oh you make more money than I do. You pay for the date"? The examples he gives are extremely varied. Sometimes it's just "When a man does this, this happens to him. When a woman does this, this happens to her." Other times he cites many documented cases of injustice (mostly of the legal variety) against men. He also pulls from history, everywhere from Roe vs. Wade, the Vietnam War, the Bible and the Great Depression.

Keep in mind that not everything he says is pure gold. Like I said before, he tends to generalize and sometimes even stray from the point. He brings up very rogue situations sometimes and makes big comparisons. For example, he talks about the stress of unemployment for a man being equivalent to rape of a woman. While he does explain it well, I think it's a rather inappropriate comparison. He also talks about "football scholarships" being "mutilation scholarships." Some examples seem almost irrelevant if not completely wrong. One major example was his near-dismissal of the Salem Witch Trials as being a way of controlling women. He obviously needs to read the Malleus Maleficarum. That book is chock-full of misogyny.

Furthermore, I really grew tired of his Stage I and Stage II philosophies. They talk about how men's and women's roles have changed throughout time. While I do trust his credibility, they seemed rather irrelevant at times, and I just grew tired of hearing about them.

However, my biggest gripe with this book was the talk of rape. He uses it a lot as a metaphor, but his chapter about The Politics of Rape seems to somewhat border on victim blaming. However, his points do shine through…somewhat. He talks about the misinterpretation of body languages and gives examples of where people were drunk, thinking within the heat of the moment or felt pressured some way to give into sex. He cites a statistic saying that most people have felt pressured into unwanted sexual activity at one point in their lifetimes. This leads to a broader definition of rape. I, for one, can cite certain points in my life where I've been pressured to do something or when my partner made a move without asking for consent. I'm unsure how to feel about this chapter, but I know it's a delicate subject and must be handled carefully.

Finally, one must take this book with a slight grain of salt. Being about 20 years old, many of the facts may seem dated by now. While I can still relate to some of the things he's saying, I think the example of the draft is one that may be far too old to be considered. He enjoys talking about the Vietnam War quite a lot, and I assume that it's because it was current during his generation.

Even while disagreeable at some points, The Myth of Male Power is a well-researched and well-documented book. The main idea which I have gotten was that misogyny and seeing the woman as the weaker sex has had negative effects on both genders. Society's focused care on women has almost neglected men. This book may be a bit outdated, but it's still an interesting perspective for anybody who wants to take a look at an uncommon issue.

The book, as well as Warren Farrell have been wildly influential in the ever-growing men's rights movement. While the movement is tiny in scope compared to feminism, it's hard to believe that such an unknown book has made such a big difference. Just watch youtuber men's rights activists like manwomanmyth and girlwriteswhat and you'll see just how many of Farrell's ideas play into their talks.

Anyways, if you're not interested in reading it, but still want to know what it's about, you can check out this link to hear some interesting tidbits:

12/25/12: It's Christmas and I've decided to up this book to a 5 star rating. As I've delved deeper into misandry and the likes, I've realized that so much of what men's rights activists are talking about can be traced back to this book.