Male expendability
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Male expendability or male disposability is the idea that society can better cope with the loss of a typical man than with the loss of a typical woman.
Concept[edit]
Norwegian sociologist Øystein Gullvåg Holter argues that the male-led Russian government's belief in male expendability contributed to their delay in seeking international help during the Kursk submarine disaster, in which an all-male crew of 118 personnel was lost. He states, "If 118 women had been killed, alarm bells regarding discrimination against women would probably have gone off around the world." He states that able-bodied males were viewed as a more legitimate target during wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Timor, Rwanda, and Chechnya.[1]
Ivana Milojević notes that while patriarchy assigns the role of sex object to women, it assigns to men the role of violence-object, with male expendability being corollary to the sexual objectification of girls.[2] Films such as They Were Expendable or The Expendables often are about all-male combat teams. Michael D. Clark notes that Adolf Hitler considered gay men expendable by means of Nazi concentration camps and Nazi medical experiments.[3]
Manosphere critics of feminism have argued that poor and working-class men "are cannon fodder abroad and expendable labor at home, trapped beneath a glass floor in jobs nobody really wants—farm workers, roofers, garbage men—and injured at far higher rates than women".[4] Walter Block argues in The Case for Discrimination that male expendability is the result of women being the bottleneck of reproductive capacity in a population.[5] This theme was echoed in Warren Farrell's The Myth of Male Power.
Studies[edit]
According to a 2016 study, people are more likely to sacrifice a man than a woman to save others. In an experiment involving the administration of electric shocks for money, people were also less likely to shock women than men. In a third experiment, people were asked "On a sinking ship, whom should you save first? Men, women, or no order" Both men and women's responses suggested that social norms account for greater harming behavior toward a male than a female. [6]
Second sexism[edit]
The term “second sexism” was coined by David Benatar in two essays: The Second Sexism and The Second Sexism, A Second Time published in 2003[7][8] and later expanded in the book The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys published in 2012.[9]
Benatar defines second sexism as gender discrimination against men. While Benatar acknowledges that sexism against women and girls, which he calls “first sexism,” is still the most severe type of gender discrimination in most parts of the world, he posits that to a lesser degree men and boys are also victims. According to Benatar, women are consistently kept away from war, while men are encouraged or pressured into military conscription via state policies and social norms. He gives an example of how news broadcasts explicitly mention if women and children suffer from a tragedy, as opposed to merely the number of people who suffered or even if men suffered.[citation needed]
Benatar also illustrates examples of second sexism by using statistics which show negative biases towards males in civil societies, including court decisions which tend more to leniency for women than men. He cites a study which found men in U.S. prisons are three times more likely to be sexually coerced than females. Males are disadvantaged with regard to child custody in divorce cases and paternity leave. Benatar says that statistics demonstrate a higher number of school dropouts and worse academic performances from boys than girls.[citation needed]
Benatar posits that males are not only unconsidered in discussions about discrimination, but are also discouraged and neglected: sexism towards males is "[s]o unrecognized […] that the mere mention of it will appear laughable to some".[citation needed] He also claims that while the fact that women tend to want to switch roles with men more so than men want to switch roles with women, observing that phenomenon does not indicate that women have a more comfortable life. Benatar implies that this experience would mean just the opposite.[9][10]
Criticisms[edit]
Tom Digby's essay "Male Trouble: Are Men Victims of Sexism?" is a direct counterpoint to Benatar's text. According to him, the concept of Second Sexism fails to identify the perpetrators of sexism against men, takes sexism out of its historical context, and oversimplifies the definition of sexism.[11]
While Benatar argues that men suffer more from war because they are expected to spare women, Digby posits that most often men themselves are the ones insisting that society spare women. He support the thesis that societies tend to chose men as the disposable sex for war to spare women's ability to give birth.[11]
Another criticism[by whom?] is that Benatar does not clearly identify whether individuals or society are responsible for second sexism. He also does not acknowledge the potential role of patriarchal systems[further explanation needed] in the perpetuation of second sexism.[11][10]
According to Kenneth Clatterbaugh, almost all Benatar's points have already been argued for since the men's rights movements that emerged in the 1970s.[12]
See also[edit]
- Androcide
- Misandry
- Missing white woman syndrome
- Reverse sexism
- Superfluous man
- Violence against men
- Women and children first, aka Birkenhead drill
- Women-are-wonderful effect
References[edit]
- ^ Holter, Øystein Gullvåg (March 2002). "A theory of gendercide". Journal of Genocide Research. 4 (1): 11–38. doi:10.1080/14623520120113883. S2CID 73119529.
- ^ Milojević, Ivana (June 2012). "Why the Creation of a Better World is Premised on Achieving Gender Equity and on Celebrating Multiple Gender Diversities". Journal of Futures Studies. 16 (4): 51–66.
- ^ Clark, J. Michael (May 1993). "From Gay Men's Lives: Toward a More Inclusive, Ecological Vision". The Journal of Men's Studies. 1 (4): 347–358. doi:10.3149/jms.0104.347. S2CID 144062867.
- ^ Sharlet, Jeff (February 3, 2014). "What Kind of Man Joins the Men's Rights Movement?". GQ. Retrieved 2017-08-03.
- ^ Block, Walter E. (2010). The Case for Discrimination. Ludwig von Mises Institute. pp. 32–33. ISBN 9781933550817.
- ^ "Chivalry is not dead when it comes to morality: We're more likely to protect women than we are men". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2022-01-18.
- ^ Benatar, David (2003). "The Second Sexism". Social Theory and Practice. 29 (2): 177–210. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract200329213. ISSN 0037-802X. JSTOR 23559072. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
- ^ Benatar, David (2003). "The Second Sexism, a Second Time". Social Theory and Practice. 29 (2): 275–296. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract200329214. ISSN 0037-802X. JSTOR 23559077. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
- ^ a b Benatar, David (2012). The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (PDF).
- ^ a b Sanauddin, Noor (2012). "Review of The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys by David Benatar" (PDF). The Kelvingrove Review (10). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
- ^ a b c Digby, Tom (April 2003). "Male Trouble: Are Men Victims of Sexism?". Social Theory and Practice. 29 (2): 247–273. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract200329212. JSTOR 23559076.
- ^ Clatterbaugh, Kenneth (2003). "Benatar's Alleged Second Sexism". Social Theory and Practice. 29 (2): 211–218. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract20032929. ISSN 0037-802X. JSTOR 23559073. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
External links[edit]
- Farrell, Warren (1993). The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-79349-4.
- Baumeister, Roy (2010). Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537410-0.