Part of respecting women’s bodies is acknowledging that we HAVE bodies with female anatomy. To take away our physical form, to deny that women have breasts, cervixes, and Fallopian tubes, is to attempt to take power from women.
22
If a man ever complained about his lot in life like this he would rightly be called a whiner and told to suck it up and get on with it. Self-pity is not a virtue (neither is righteous anger, by the way).
If you really want more power you’re going to have to get tougher. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
That’s how power works. If you really, really want it you’re going to have to take it by any means necessary and damn the consequences. You can’t constantly be worried about what other people think, if you are “liked”.
For a good example, see: The History of the World.
8
Seeing the world through a dogmatic, binary lens is why religion has a bad rap with many in this culture. It's pervaded whatever this new religion is called, as well.
4
Nothing could be more patriarchal then a cisgender white man defining “woman” as an inner feeling. And that’s exactly what the notion of a “white transgender woman” does. If you support the notion of the “transgender woman”, and that female biology is not central to women’s oppression - you’re the misogynist. You diminish women to a simple claim of “womanhood”. You’re not a feminist at all.
13
It's hard to take all these commenters complaining about feminism in a month that has seen extremist abortion laws sailing through male-dominated statehouse after male-dominated statehouse. Banning abortion kills women. Banning abortion even in cases of rape is to violate a woman's human rights. Forced reproduction is a weapon of war. Feminism is simple self-defense against Republican-dominated governments that have declared war on women.
26
This article is a Women’s Studies essay, full of unsubstantiated jargon and misinformation. I would love to see a Men’s Studies reply, but I know I won’t. It might go something like this:
Women control politics and the government because most voters are female. Politicians must pander to women. This results in many laws, rules, bureaus, etc., explicitly for the benefit of women.
Women control the economy because you get more power from spending money than making it. Women spend the vast majority of consumer dollars. An effect of this is that women control the media. Advertisers must aim their ads at women, and correspondingly, the media must also pander to women. (This is why I will never see a similar Men’s Studies article.)
Women completely dominate over men with their sexual power. This power is often abusive. Much of sexual harassment is men pushing back against this domination and abuse. But, women’s abusive power is so bad that most of men’s sexual behavior is now potentially illegal.
Women also dominate in victim power. Chivalry discourages men from being seen as victims, even though I suspect they are victimized more than women---most violence is against men, most suicides, most killed at work and at war, circumcision, most rape victims if prisoners are counted, etc.
Of course, such a Men’s Studies article will not be printed in the Times. I suspect this comment won’t either.
8
To the Editors because, despite your pleas to hear from women, I doubt this would ever get a response:
What is your end goal in publishing op-ed after op-ed painting women who believe in the reality of the female body as oppressors? This one was sneaky, the author waited until halfway through to compare radical feminists with conservatives. What's the point of continuing to prevent us from responding? Why not publish writing by Fair Play For Women, Julie Bindel, Meghan Murphy, WoLF, Linda Bellos, etc etc etc?
The physical reality of the female body is being legislated by the right. But the left is performing its own tricks to rob us of autonomy through verbal contortions that render "female" and "woman" utterly meaningless categories. This robs us of our ability to describe our experiences, to organize for change, to name problems and find solutions. It only lets us define ourselves in relation to what is male (or "not woman"). Power exists in language as well, not just in physical function.
The body is not everything, no. But ask any woman who has carried a pregnancy because she had no other choice, who suffers for years with undiagnosed endometriosis, whose PMDD goes untreated because no one knows what causes it, who suffers in a menstrual hut or in childbirth, who entered a more hostile world when she developed breasts at age 10 whether or not biology is relevant to being female.
I continue to be disappointed by the NYT's editorial board on this issue.
18
And here I was hoping this would be an article on well-armed women.
2
For women who want to keep your power—do not allow yourself to become financially entangled with a man. Do not move in with any man who is messy or unwilling to share responsibilities. Do not get married to anyone who has shown any violence or aggression toward you. Do not have children with anyone who is irresponsible with money, not all the way grown up, or has any violent or aggressive traits. Know that you are perfect alone. Do not settle for dating or marrying people who can be best described as a “project”. We all have to do our own emotional work in this life-although you were socialized to nurture, nurture Yourself rather than shovel love and effort into an unfillable hole. Love and strength to all the womenfolk.
24
Good column, but the statement about NASA and spacesuits was misleading at best and an outright falsehood if linked to misogyny! The novelist wrote:
“Just recently, NASA’s plans for its first all-female spacewalk fell through because of a lack of suits in the right size.”
However, NASA has suits for different size astronauts, including women. The woman astronaut in question thought the larger suit was going to fit her, but after an initial spacewalk determined she needed a medium, which was NOT on the space station!
“What should have been a giant leap for womankind has turned into a stumble after Nasa said on Monday night that they will only have access to one correctly sized spacesuit top by Friday when the walk was scheduled. One of the two women on the mission, Anne McClain, will now have to give up her place to a male colleague.
She thought a large-sized suit would be fine but after a spacewalk last week found that the medium-sized was a better fit and would be the most appropriate suit to wear to venture back outside the International Space Station.
“Anne trained in ‘M’ and ‘L’ and thought she could use a large but decided after [last] Friday’s spacewalk a medium fits better,” a Nasa spokeswoman, Stephanie Schierholz, announced on Monday.
“In this case, it’s easier (and faster!) to change space-walkers than reconfigure the spacesuit.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/25/nasa-all-female-spacewalk-canceled-women-spacesuits
5
This is one of the most inane columns I ever have read in the NYT. If that sounds harsh, I apologize, but the emotions expressed here seem really over the top. What Ms. Mackintosh has to realize is that most men also have been victims of the patriarchal power structure in this country that benefits the rich and only the rich. Ms. Mackintosh, are you not aware of the high suicide & death rates (from addiction and other preventable causes) among middle-age men in this country? Or that more women attend and graduate from college than men -- and that men without a college degree have little option for a decent job because the manufacturing jobs that once ensured a middle-class lifestyle are all but gone? Finally, in terms of male/female relationships -- and this comment may be a little bit off the point being made by Ms. Mackintosh -- both sides are equally to blame for situations where the parties become hostile to one another. Women are just as likely to abuse men because they too, are prone to alcoholism, drug abuse, mental illness, fits of rage, jealousy, and the desire to control another person.
12
Wonderful article. And I have something to add. As a gay man, I have a little understanding of what the author is writing about. After all, gay men are viewed as, “effeminate,” “feminized.” Doctors ignore us too. And our pain. And we suffer the same insults of patriarchy. Each time I visit a new doctor, the first years they request are for STDs-and this has been the case with every doctor I’ve ever seen, for any condition, since I care out. Not only are we viewed like women, but we are also assumed to be insane sex maniacs, with no regard for our own health and our bodies. And God forbid if we contract HIV, which I did in 1998. Then, they want to stick enormous painful probes inside my rectum every 3 months to look for anal cancer. I did that for 10 years. I as so many biopsies, they actually had to do a surgery to remove all the scar tissue they had created, in order to do more biopsies. The awful thing is, that there is no scientific proof of a causal relationship between HPV and anorectal cancer, unlike the established relationship between HPV and cervical cancer. After 10 years of enduring this incredibly painful procedure, that triggered flashbacks of a rape every time I had it, I declined to ever have it again.
Our society hates all things feminine. And this unfortunately applies to gay men too.
8
WE ARE ALL HUMAN AND DO NOT HAVE THE SAME RELATION TO A SOCIETY OF ME AND FOR ME INSTEAD OF ME AND FOR ALL.
To me women are the important part of society. There is no exception to this because you and all women know what it is to bring up a baby.
Most of the male counterparts don't know or realize what a women does.
We go out on our jobs and talk to mostly adults and carry on with the business at hand.
Women go out and talk to a baby and do all the other things that it takes to bring up that baby.
We as a male populace have a easier time unless we come home and realize that we have to give a hand.
I applaud all of the women that have kids and not for all you go through in a mans world, which hopefully in the near future will be a HUMAN WORLD where everyone is equal and not just by the physical strength of the individual.
1
If Ms. Mackintosh's theory is correct, then why are suicides among working-class men skyrocketing? Why are men consistently polled as being more pessimistic than women? Our service-, care-, desk-oriented economy greatly favors the very feminine qualities Mackintosh maintains keeps women down. It's the people with traditionally masculine qualities who are being dumped on the ash heap.
32
Transgender is gender identification not based upon biology. It is real to the person but what is often ignored is that the biological experience of transgender people never was the same as that of people born with the bodies of the gender with which they feel that they should be. Having hormones introduced that are produced by female organs is never the same as having those organs. Same for those produced by male organs. Females born with female bodies and males who later have their bodies altered by hormones and surgery are not both females in the same way and they will never experience life as females in the same way. Same for males.
13
Interesting article.What resonates with me however is that there seems to be a default position that the discussion has to be male against female in all spheres.
Why do people posit this discussion in all its forms as binary choices? Yes, there have been decades and centuries of male domination in thought, policy and action. Yes, women have been marginalized, taken advantage of and ignored. However-one doesn’t right the wrong by the “other” side repeating the previous actions We diminish all people if we make these conversations only about power and not about choices.
Many people want to be able to make their own decisions about work, family, parenting etc-in other words their lives. We ought to be able to hold two or three opposing thoughts together in one place-that women and men should be able to choose their work, whether and when to have children -it’s an economic question as much as anything-and can we imagine multiple variations of what “gender” means.
Somehow, some time, I hope we move from every discussion being X versus Y to conversations of “let’s figure this out together”. Basic values of how human beings can live together shouldn’t be so hard to figure out.
And before you say I have rose-colored glasses on, just consider that perhaps all most people want is to be listened to and heard. If that happens, the favor gets returned, and we can start to become more community minded rather than angrily locked in cages labeled “I’m Right and You’re Wrong”.
3
"One, for example, was told by a male doctor that she was overreacting to the pain of a ruptured cyst the size of an orange."
Yes. A friend of mine recently called 911 because of extreme abdominal pain like nothing she had ever experienced. She overheard one of the male EMTs say, "All of this for a tummy ache." It turned out she had a ruptured cyst.
In high school, I tried to knock myself out by banging my head against the shower tiles because extreme abdominal pain. No one had prepared me for how bad menstrual cramps can be. I called my mom, and when she took me to the doctor, he asked me if I had poo problems recently and just said, "Things can get a little mixed up down there." There was no discussion about how this pain would likely visit me every month and what to do about it.
In my adult life, I developed searing pain after orgasm. I talked to my doctor and my OBGYN about it. Nothing. Neither had ever heard of it. Yet a quick google search turns up masses of women online sharing their experiences with this and how no one has gotten any answers.
It is very hard not to feel like a second-class citizen when one is a woman. I guess it's because we are second-class citizens.
12
You feel like a second class citizen because Doctors didnt always provide the correct diagnosis and didnt know everything right away?
lol.
4
Sounds like someone with addiction issues.
Best way for a woman to become empowered is to become powerful physically. Strength and stamina do wonders for women not only physically but psychically and psychologically.
Having the strength to do things without asking for help, to try things new because of the improved self confidence, to boldly go where one may not have ever thought of going before, are all benefits to women who maintain above average physical strength.
And it cuts down on the sense of victimhood and grievance, too.
10
@Paul are you serious? I am a (cis hetero) woman who is very physically strong, and who has worked hard to get that way. I spend time volunteering in a historically male domain. Guess what happens? (1) Men (and some women) see me as "mannish," not a strong woman. (2) Men still try to do physical things for me even if I'm not asking them to. (3) Men (especially younger men) literally getting angry when I can do something they can't. (4) Oh boy, and if I ever dare to offer to help a man with a physical task that I can do but he is struggling with... it's ugly.
Thanks so much for your helpful tip. If only one were as physically strong as a man one would obviously be so empowered.
11
@Paul What is "above average"?
@Sadie
I'll have to check the physio specs. Please be more specific as to height, weight, age, etc.
Eight uses of "I" in the first paragraph is just pure self infatuation in any not document that is not a court testimony. I, I, I, me, me, my, mine. If I want to understand the power of an under 30 author author, the last person I would go to is that person. This article reads to me like a person who has simply not grown up yet, but who believes they have because of some enumerable experience off of a list: "I biked around Europe, so know I am an expert on both Europe, and life." At 22.
Well in fact life does not work that way, for most intelligent adults it is discovered that it is the perspective born of longevity, not particular events, that provides real human growth, and therefore strength. This story might get the author into a grad school, but it does not impress me.
41
I don't know. Maybe I missed something. Are transwomen now out there on the forefront of Women's Rights? Are they saying that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their own bodies the way that they, the trans-women, decided to surgically align their outsides to their insides? Are they picketing in the streets for decent pay, affordable health care, and affordable quality education for themselves and their children? Are they working hard to make sure that women are paid just as much as men are paid for doing the same job? Are they pushing for the ratification of the ERA in every state? Are they working to improve the air, land and water quality so that their children and grandchildren will live in an environmentally-safe world? Because if they are, I'm sorry but I'm just not seeing it.
38
Both prominent feminists that have devoted their lives to female empowerment, Julie Bindel and Linda Bellos, have both been intimated and threatened.
From this article - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5692727/Labour-activist-Linda-Bellos-took-partys-trans-activists-questioned-police.html#comments
"When feminists who have spent decades challenging sexism, racism, and homophobia are viewed as a risk to the wellbeing of students, something has gone very wrong indeed."
There is a deeper story to what is going on in England between feminists and the trans community.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5692727/Labour-activist-Linda-Bellos-took-partys-trans-activists-questioned-police.html#comments
The attack of Maria MacLachlan, 61 by a group of men for being a Radical Feminist. The issue of the hate speech term Terf, and the mainstream's use of the term. Men telling and threatening women.
https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/06/21/interview-maria-maclauchlan-gra-aftermath-assault-speakers-corner/
30
Real power is being glad I'm a woman.
26
"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." George Orwell.
22
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
Not Orwell and not about gender.
3
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
Many of those standing watch in the night, be it cops, EMT or military, are women.
4
For thousands of years, women have endured being denied by men as having equal autonomy and freedom. Even today, woman can be tortured or murdered, without consequence, for even saying out loud they are entitled to the same autonomy and freedoms men have.
So if some men feel unfairly conceptualized as as women start taking what has always been rightfully theirs, tough.
37
@Live Free
Don't forget to "take" the washing machine and the dishwasher, too. The microchip and the hammer you can leave behind, though, won't serve you as easily.
6
Women can be tortured or murdered, without consequence, for saying they deserve autonomy, in Saudi Arabia. Also in Yemen, Pakistan, and similar nations. Not in America though, don't kid yourself.
3
@Alice's Restaurant So long as you leave us the earmarks of women's achievement- things built off Emmy Noether's mathematics, computing (COBOL was developed by Grace Hopper), modern mobile phone networks (spectrum hopping was developed by Katherine Hepburn), and the multitude of other female-invented items that also took us into the modern era. You keep the washing machine, I'll take the cell phone network and computers. I bet I can rebuild the machine before you recreate the Internet ...
1
Dear Author,
If I could kindly share one piece of wisdom with you, please look up the meaning of “Out of Many, One.”
I think you will quickly find that earnestly listening to and learning from the stories of overcoming adversity from people far more disenfranchised and oppressed than yourself will help you understand how to leverage the power in society, which you *DO* have. That always for women, I believe, requires cooperation with others of all walks of life if you want to be an advocate for both yourself and others.
When you choose victimhood, you stop listening to and believing the experiences of others. Like many other comments have suggested, this often leads us to stop advocating for others outside of one’s self.
Playing a game of outdoing one another with claims of oppression only fractures us. Instead, please learn that real power is listening to the depths of experiences of your fellow peers and neighbors. Listen to people when they share something with you, then believe them. That’s the only way to be an advocate and use the power that you DO have as a light skinned woman in a Eurocentric society to help bring about equality for others outside of yourself and your own experiences, while also commanding respect for yourself and being respectful of others.
23
Yes. Thank you.
The author lost me as soon as she started going after women, who as some are in Britain and other countries as well, are defending our right to exist as actual, biological women under the law. A faction of radical trans activists are trying to eradicate biological women as a legal entity or as a group that actually exists apart from trans people. These biological males, who often have not surgically transitioned from being male, calling themselves females, have gone after women in creating laws and even in physical and other types of attacks. Now that's what I call Sisterhood! /s Wherever this ideology has taken hold we are no longer women, we are "persons with a uterus" including in some aspects of our own Healthcare. To say otherwise is considered legally to be hate speech. That this woman would say she defends women and then attack the women who do not agree to being obliterated, is unconscionable and incomprehensible to this reader. Fighting for the rights of trans women should not be at the expense of those of us who are born female. And since people are clearly taking sides, don't say how much you are for women and for defending women and then say what you did about the women you don't agree with. By the way, the gender movement insists on their own pronouns and labels. I do not like being called cisgender. I am a woman.
93
Human being,
Me too! Well said!
34
@Humanbeing
Fighting for the rights of someone "other" than you are doesn't lessen your own rights. On the contrary. Fighting for anyone's rights helps everybody.
Fighting for the rights of transwomen and transmen is exactly what a true feminist should do, just like fighting for the rights of any oppressed minority.
Given the number of violent acts including murders on transwomen (look it up, it's pretty disheartening), your comment (and that of others) contains a lot of hatred. It echoes past feminists hatred and/or ignorance of black women and the demeaning of their contribution (notably in the suffragette's movement for voting rights for women)
So no, do not take sides. Give compassion and empathy a chance to flourish within you.
17
@Humanbeing
Amen.
You are not alone in feeling this outrage at how males are once again defining the female body and influencing laws that threaten its safety and health.
And the young women of today are claiming we are the unenlightened ones and categorized as the “women” who don’t support other “women”.
Yet, we are trying to fight for our very relevance and survival here.
The kool-aid has been drunk.
I’m not sure how it will all end but I do feel fear for the fate of the female of the human species.
41
Although I am sympathetic to the overall message, a lot of the details here don't fit.
For example: "Men present with heart attacks differently from women, and so their cardiac events are often missed."
No, it isn't because women present differently; it's because women's symptoms tend to be more diffuse, while men's are more specific: this means that it's objectively easier to diagnose a heart attack in men, on average. Any accusations of misogyny are best directed towards our creator, or mother nature, depending on your philosophical bent.
Similarly, the reality of the spacesuit example is rather more prosaic than misogynist: they didn't have another suit ready because one of the two women had decided only a few days before that the large size suit she had previously been using was inadequate, and the spare medium suit they had in storage needed some prep before it could be used.
It is unfortunate when a thesis that may accurate overall is undermined by the use of inaccurate and inapplicable examples.
30
@A You are incorrect. Women and minorities are not included in medical studies. Often, women are an afterthought when it comes to their needs. The right to vote for women began in the 1830's and women had to wait 90 years until 1920 before the majority of men granted us the "permission" to vote. Laws were made by men for men. Look at what is happening right now. The right to decide about our own bodies is decided by men under the guise of "Christian values". Take a deeper look at what is happening.
43
@A
Women's heart attacks are not "more diffuse" than men's. It's just that their specific symptoms were not seen/recognized in the past (they are now, luckily)....
It is now a known fact that much of medical studies were centered only on men -- but luckily this has changed or is rapidly changing.
As for the rest, it's not Mother Nature that causes a woman with equal qualifications and experience and education to be paid less than a male for exactly the same job.
28
@EJW
I think you may have not really read my comment very carefully. In both the first and last sentence I suggest that the overall thesis is probably right, which makes it doubly unfortunate that some of the examples are not good ones.
Your response does not address any of those specific examples I talked about...so I don't know why you think I am wrong, or even that we disagree?
9
As a woman and as a female, every time I read another article like this one, I despair.
Do we born into female bodies really not see our power or relevance for humanity.
When I became pregnant for the first time it was like a religious awakening.
I understood the power of my female body and that power lay in the act of creation itself. My body biologically was designed to create, nourish sustain and bring forth new life.
This is the very power that has given rise to misogynistic patriarchy and male entitlement to control our bodies in whatever way they see fit.
And when I hear young women disparage and attack us old feminists who push back against a movement that is just another manifestation of patriarchal insanity surrounding the female body, and helps further reduce us to hormone levels and surgically created genitalia, I weep for us all.
You are correct.
The feminine that emanates from the female body is not weak.
But the feminine that emanates from patriarchal ideologies is.
38
"The feminine that emanates from the female body is not weak. But the feminine that emanates from patriarchal ideologies is."
Thank you.
6
While I applaud your struggle to gain a sense of mastery, safety, and self-acceptance in your life, men are vulnerable too. We all face the existential struggle of meaning, mortality, etc. and the challenges of everyday demands as well. There are reasons for the fact that men, and perhaps white men, have largely had the upper hand. While the reasons may be multifaceted, I think true intellectual discourse might not only uncover all of the variables involved but also the underlying root causes. It's easy to say that women, minority groups etc are "oppressed." Well, why is that? What is it about the majority groups that is different. Are they better? More equipped? Are they more selfish? More sadistic? Sadly, political correctness does not allow us to investigate such questions without being labeled misogynistic, racist etc.
If we conclude that women are not physically more powerful then men, then what about other forms of power? The author is clearly intelligent. The ability to think and express oneself is quite powerful in the opinion of most. Do women cry more? While many consider crying to be a weakness, it's quite easy to see it as powerful in my opinion. For example, having the ability to release and express negative emotion which can evoke others to voluntarily reach out and provide care for the person is quite powerful.
So, yes, continue to fight for justice and level the playing field, but realize that we all suffer and are powerful in our own unique ways.
9
@David - Man to man: you're playing victim while telling her and all other women not to play victim.
"There are reasons for the fact that men, and perhaps white men, have largely had the upper hand. " - This "upper hand" is upheld with rape, beatings, other forms of violence, and--most importantly--a legal system that has been created by men and for men. Women are only just coming up on 100 years of suffrage.
"It's easy to say that women, minority groups etc are "oppressed." Well, why is that? What is it about the majority groups that is different. Are they better? More equipped? Are they more selfish? More sadistic? "
Women and other minority groups ARE oppressed and your quote marks around "oppressed" signal you don't believe they are. Why is that: as above, white men have rigged the system for themselves.
"Are they better?" - You're implying that men, especially white men, are genetically superior.
"More equipped" - Yes, majorities who control political power control other forms of power: money, social rank, property, etc. Yes, the majorities who rig the system in their favor are more equipped--not because they are innately superior but because they rig.
"Are they more selfish? More sadistic?" Yes, they are. Ample studies prove that the wealthier a person gets, the more selfish they become. White supremacy and patriarchy are sadistic social orders that, as above, rely on violence and rigging to maintain hegemony.
Man to man: do better, bro.
23
@Jeremy
Human being to human being: I'm glad you understood several of my points.
"Not because they are innately superior but because they rig." I'm not really sure I know what that means. If one group is more adept at "rigging" then they are in some sense "superior." This is my point: Let's find out what the underlying reasons are. Or are you saying that we are all created equal? This is naive at best.
Oppressed was placed in quotes not because I do not believe that there is such a thing, but because there are other underlying reasons for why some groups are dominant. Oppression is a surface term. We need to look at what's innate and part of the natural order of things. ie survival of the fittest. Why do some species survive and not others? Skill set, randomness/chance, or some other reason?
The tone of your response is indicative of the reason we are unable to have this discussion. And the reason many are unable to civilly have such a discussion is, among other reasons, that It touches upon the underlying unfairness or randomness if you will, of life.
"You're implying that men, especially white men, are genetically superior." The tides are turning. Population studies suggest that the white man will soon be in the minority, and another group will dominate. The revolutionaries if they survive and win eventually become the oppressors, until they are unseated and so on....power corrupts, and absolute power absolutely corrupts.
Try to look at the bigger picture.
1
I honestly have no idea what is being discussed here.
The patriarchal bogeyman defining what power is?
There are countless men who also fall short of the “male ideal”, which is founded more on what women find to be desirable than any sort of shadow committee of patriarchs. A lot of us are under 6 foot, make under 6 figures, and don’t look like Chris Hemsworth.
Why not just be content with who you are instead of concerning yourself with how powerful you are for not being defined by the dark council of men? Or is that one and the same?
20
Men (the sensible ones, anyway) have a deep appreciation for the physical endurance necessary to be a woman. When Prince Harry said "How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension," he was expressing the respect any new father has for the mother of his child.
Ms Mackintosh takes instances from all our lives and particularizes them to women. I can cite as many instances when doctors underestimated, underplayed or pooh-poohed men who came in to see doctors with problems. This isn't a man-woman problem; it's a doctor-patient problem.
I had a lawyer recently, a woman, who wouldn't listen to me, didn't even want me to talk, and downgraded any comment or suggestion. I didn't blame it on gender; I just think she was a lousy lawyer.
22
Women are stronger than men. It’s why we do more work. It’s why we can work at a man job and come home, clean, cook, take care of children. We can keep track of multiple things. We understand why cooperation is better than competition. We know why caring for ourselves and other people makes for smarter outcomes. People prefer to work with women. We live longer. We take our lives and relationships seriously.
The idea that men are better and live better lives is a boldfaced lie.
Live Women strong, take women work seriously. We women spread happiness, comfort and laughter. Celebrate and enjoy your women power!
9
giving birth isn't easy
8
You lost me at the use of the prefix "cis," Sophie.
Too many categories and not enough clarity.
38
Great article and just want to say that I LOVED The Water Cure. Beautifully written and captures in story form, many of her observations about misogyny, power and powerlessness from a woman's perspective. Thank you.
1
I read this article, and after reading it, it seems to me to be a shallow analysis of the current gender and sex wars that are playing out in society. What exactly is her point I asked myself? I think she's rehashing her personal story of feeling that the "patriarchy" is responsible for victimizing women and brainwashing women that they are powerless, and that's a scam perpetrated by the "patriarchy". While there is certainly a lot of injustice in our society towards various groups, including women, I also see a trend of creating a "victim vs oppressor" narrative from the left. This is often non-democratic, and typically vehemently campaigns to quash opinions the "victims" have decided are part of the oppressor narrative. This oversimplification just exacerbates division and lessens understanding and harms the pursuit of complex truths; sometimes I think that is what angry people on both left and right really want because it's easier to yell at the other side with indignation than to actually progress.
19
We get it, Joe! Blame the messenger!
If the Left decries egregious inequality, then THEY are the ones engaging in class warfare.
If a novelist exposes misogyny and rampant discrimination, then SHE'S to blame for playing the “victim card”.
You're essentially saying, “Move along; nothing to see here, just another whiny female or Leftist trying to divide us” — all the while, it's the social system, the rightwing patriarchy, the corporate power elite, White Nationalists, and segregationists who have been dividing us and oppressing women, minorities, and the working class for centuries!
5
Because Dad drove the car on family vacations doesn't mean you lived in a patriarchy! Men are bigger and stronger and more aggressive than women. This is not in dispute among serious people, male and female. About 3 in 1,000 people experience gender dysphoria, so 99.7% of men are so-called cis-male. Binary gender is settled science, as is a spherical planet, or climate change. Why are otherwise sensible people scoffing at settled science? Every individual is entitled to dwell on their personal experience, but they should not necessarily extrapolate their situation onto the group. Women have their own unique advantages. Society is moving in ways that favor the female template of nurture and conciliation I am a male Irish American, Roman Catholic, Vietnam Veteran from the Bronx. However, I don’t speak for men, Irish Americans, Roman Catholics, Vietnam Veterans, or folks from the Bronx. I speak for myself.
24
@Tom W.
You may not speak for all men, but you speak AS a man. That's the entire point.
9
@Tom W. Man to man: this is a wonderful example of mansplaining, Tom. You're non-sensical "99.7% of men are so-called cis-male...Binary gender is a settled science." Your stats are suspect, but by acknowledging that there are less than 100% cis persons you're totally debasing your (*FALSE*) statement on "binary gender" as "settled science." There cannot be a binary if there's not only cis people in existence--bi means two, in case you're not aware.
You're beating your chest -- "bigger and stronger and more aggressive" -- because you're scared.
Men like you make me laugh as much as you make me despair. You can only see the world through your 20th Century white male prisim, and you can't even be bothered to Google to see if your assertions are correct or not. Why is that? Because you grew up in a PATRIARCHAL society that has conditioned you to think that you're always right, that you know best, all because you're a man.
10
Growing up as a gay Jew in a Southern town, my white male identity didn't do me much good. I suffered. I got screwed up. But I think I've dealt with it and worked through it. Lots of white men have similar societal handicaps to deal with. This wholesale generalizing of white men as responsible for all the oppression of everyone else isn't based in fact and is destructive for everybody.
29
Power is a man’s game.
Women are weak, will always be seen as weak, until we freely choose self-healing, empowerment, and then true partnership with one another…and with men.
I have worked as a women’s empowerment coach for 20+ years – sitting in quiet seminar rooms filled with women who have experienced harassment, abuse, and violence - some stories too shocking to write here – I know well the breadth of our challenges…and the depth of the damage.
I can assure you that no woman ever heals from harassment, or worse, until the moment she decides to shed the label of “victim” or “survivor” and instead chooses to heal and empower herself – with appropriate professional help if need be – and take back her power.
As women, we need to ask ourselves the really tough reality questions...
Why didn’t we come together to support one another 30 years ago? 20 years ago? Ever? Why do women support men like Trump? Why are we now doing to men – victimizing them – what they did to us? What about respecting one another's right to choose? Where's our self-empowerment?
And we need to bring all that we have to the table to work in partnership with men to create lasting, worthwhile, productive change.
We must rise above how men treated us and do it differently, do it better; do it with intelligence, empathy and humanity.
You know…like women.
15
@Kelly Grace Smith
Men who treat women and girls the way described do the same to men and boys if they can. The effects upon the male victims and female victims are actually pretty similar. Both lose a sense of being able to be secure from harm, being vulnerable, and have trouble regaining that sense. They know how vulnerable that they are.
5
@Kelly Grace Smith
Power is not a male game, never has been.
Misogyny is a male game, always has been.
Throughout human history females have been powerful. The common shared factor of power, be it female or male, is simply making one's own decisions.
3
@Kelly Grace Smith. Your words brought tears to my eyes. At 63 years old I have lived a life of taking care of others, trying to make peace between warring others, pouring out my time, attention, and intelligent focus helping others succeed. I have finally gotten to a deep understanding of what I heard all along but could not achieve—I must love myself first, take care of my body, know what I want first.
4
I wish we had more masculinity. The world is not rife with misogyny, well, at least not the US. It's rife with toxic feminism.
49
@PJ ABC
You can't really believe this. Women (white ones at least) help give us Trump and the many legislators now waging war on women. This is not a culture that loves women and we see it on how many women find it hard to love themselves.
18
@PJ ABC. I don’t suppose that your mother is made very happy by your lack of appreciation for your use of her body for nine months nor the use of her energy for the years you lived with her.
15
@PJ ABC -- If you realized that less than 0.5 percent of feminism is "toxic" (just a wild guess) and if you had any coherent definition of masculinity, you would be laughing at your own comment.
10
"It’s important to remember that women, too, can contribute to our powerlessness. Britain has seen a worrying increase of prominent and mainstream feminists reducing everything to biology as a way to dismiss the experiences of trans people. When women align themselves with right-wing, patriarchal ideologies about the right to exist within one’s own body, it is a key example of privilege and power working in tandem with other privileges and powers. Women collude. "
*Many of women and men have known for a long time that women are their own worst enemies on a number of subjects be it household or political. The latest example of this is the anti abortion ruling in Alabama - thanks first to it's female governor. Women are control queens and they will do anything to protect their marriages, their lifestyles and their money.
How do these women get and keep control?
Marriage to rich men is a great means to access control and power. Lacking money or parasite power thru men, then the most common method is extreme passive aggressiveness. In the south it is the reverse of hospitality. To say or do anything against their group think and the "cut or cold shoulder" of retaliation is enacted.
No one wants to be ostracized by their church or community, so the unseen and deniable facade of hypocrisy is a women's best tool.
Some say you can't stereotype all women, but when they vote in evil thru laws or in the WH oval then they are expressing their true beliefs - anger, hate, and fear.
6
.
To Ms. Mackintosh: Find your identity and empower yourself. Use you resources and skills to advance yourself on all fronts (bodysoulmindheartselfothers) while maintaining balance and good health.
It's a beautiful world out there and you live in freedom and prosperity.
To young women everywhere: don't be a feminist.
To young men everywhere: don't date a feminist.
6
@avoice4US
To women everywhere: dont date (and even less) marry a chauvinist and a hypocrite. (hypocrite because of the contradiction between the beginning of your comment and the last part of it....)
PS: a feminist is someone (male or female) who believes that women should be paid the same as men for equal qualifications, experience, education and abilities. Is this what you object to?
12
People who are unfairly stereotyped and treated unjustly as a result, return the favor where they can. Ms. MacKintosh is returning the favor of feeling demeaned because she is female.
The fact is that patriarchy and matriarchy have both resulted in injustices that society has had to resolve. The religions and cultures of the Book, of Abraham's God, reflect a war against the religions of the mother goddess which dominated that region previously, and presented it's own injustices.
The problem that dogs women is the biology of child bearing and rearing which require that they be protected during long periods of vulnerability. Males evolved to be the protectors and supporters of females to enable the human species to survive with the longest childhoods of any animals. There were compromises needed to avoid extinction.
Few children actually do not hear from mothers and grandmothers about misogynistic attitudes and why they are not fair. In this country, patriarchy has been on it's way out since before the middle of the last century. There are holdouts but they are not going to prevail over time.
Ms. Mackintosh is misdirecting her energies when she names patriarchy as the foe. The foe is inequality and the presumption that those with power are naturally entitled to dominate over others in a liberal democracy where all are supposed to be equal before the law and the political system.
7
When I read articles like this I genuinely don't understand what achieving "power" will look like. I know that I have been made unconformable at times as Me Too has taken out careers or livelihoods without any legal process. My point is 'power' is a nebulous term. What is very clear and always has been is that power is wielded and I am very unsure of what we women will be wielding when we achieve it.
13
"It is important to remember that women, too, can contribute to their powerlessness," says Ms. Mackintosh, almost as an incidental reminder. Which had me wondering: who but adult women themselves can nurture their own power, or agency? There is Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, large parts of India, but in North America and the West, there is a Republican Party and an NRA, but there is no cohesive, formed, tangible Patriarchy. And while not every woman can be Ann Richards or Annie Oakley, every sane adult woman has the key to her independence, selfhood, and inner strength. Looking to men as oppressors --or allies-- only goes so far for your life -- or any life.
13
I always thought power was the ability to affect the lives of other people and not have your life effected by other people.
9
@C. M. Jones
We as a species are hard wired to affiliate with other individuals in groups which enable all to benefit from the power of cooperative endeavors. Power socially and politically is about directing the power provided by cooperative endeavors. The use of that power to suppress, repress, and oppress is an exploitation of that social power by those entrusted with managing it for everyone.
2
This kind of men-bad-women-good kind of identity politics tends to make me very cynical. It seems like there's a social power game going on whereby an ambitious person uses group dynamics to encourage the projection of individual suffering and thereby gain power & status. Co-opted members gain the relief of validation and the easy-out of externalizing negative emotions while the leader benefits from a feeling of moral superiority and increased group status.
I understand I shouldn't take this personally as it is a game by and for the person running it. But I tend to experience it personally whenever people running similar games take an interest in projecting that group-based anger onto me.
When that happens, I have a couple of reactions: First, I feel robbed of the opportunity to be supportive of the equality which I have believed in all my life. Second, it tends to diminish my empathy and trust. Why should I have empathy for people that seem to have no empathy for me? Third, it makes me wary of the next interaction I have with identitarians.
32
@Terry
Great points. I have fought for, voted for, equal rights - and equal treatment - irrespective of race, religion, creed, sex, or sexual orientation. Black Lives Matter and MeToo, though, label me as evil and unable to comprehend or support, because I am a white male heterosexual. I now falter during interactions, I pull back rather than engage, and my support for what I know should be (equal rights and treatments) weakens as I am errantly but repeatedly labelled "The Enemy"
8
People who have power are generally scam artists and have no regard for others. If you want power then you want to dictate to others. If you want freedom you can have that, but not freedom from work. Someone, as in most people, has to work. It is how we survive. You are not a slave if you work, only if someone else gets the value of your work.
Most people don't lack power, power is a hoax and only exists because most people are easily duped to believe in certain overlords. What most people lack is a grip on reality.
2
Feminine weakness is indeed a scam. But what some commenters don't seem to appreciate is that toxic feminism is also very much a thing.
When 41% of women believe abortion should be illegal in "all" or "most" cases (Source WaPp), slamming such laws as entirely misogynistic carries with it an implied, inherent and misguided level of misandry.
12
You make no sense, @Allentown. The 41% of women believe abortion should be illegal in "all" or "most" cases are NOT toxic feminists, they are toxic females and they are complicit with the patriarchy.
This has zero to do with misandry. You are not using logic.
5
@Allentown
Misandry has nothing to do with abortion rights and the broader right of reproductive age females to make their own choices and to determine their own destiny in life, be it emotional, financial and regards to physical health.
Seriously, not everything revolves around XY. Use condoms or get a vasectomy, then men will not risk being slagged for harming the planet and so many females with their tiny mini-me first love. That's just self-responsibility.
1
The idea of the patriarchy is a bogeyman myth meant to undermine both sexes.
10
I doubt you have travelled abroad much. The world is a mess of patriarchy. War, church, domestic violence, and chadors.
Go look. Read about FGM in Africa. Not sure why I grabbed that example but....
I’m a “regular guy” ( ha! , whatever THAT means these days !) and my battles with the patriarchal boys at the office is old. And while they are busy towel slapping and spitting, I win without raising a fist.
5
We must realize that America is a violent country, and that violence lies right under the surface waiting for a scratch, waiting for a bait to show itself in myriad ways. Misogyny is just one of these multiple frustrations caused by the ever present undercurrent of violence. It would be hard to comprehend what I am saying lest we compare ourselves with other western nations where civility and civilization are practiced with evident results. They don't arm themselves to the teeth, don't invade countries, care for the general wellbeing of their citizenry etc.
Whether bullying in schools and the many varieties of machismo/machisma, misogenism, patriarchism, Trumpism, Alabama Laws and so on, the fact remains. America is a violent nation. This in itself calls for a paradigm shift which will be protracted, national effort that will take generations until we will heal the wounds and reshape the ethos of this country towards a humanistic type...
10
If I may be so bold...
As an old-school (male) feminist from the early 70's, I've seen this decades-long debate degrade into the narcissistic world of 'self-realization' and 'self-actualization'.
The bitterest, and least happy, people I know are those who chose (yes, chose) to go into 'soft' fields, such as writing, acting, the arts in general, and, of course, things like small-scale farming, yoga clinics, etc., etc. Now while there is absolutely nothing wrong with entering those fields, there is something inherently ludicrous in, once having done so, taking the position that the world 'owes' you the life and happiness that you think you deserve for having done so. A select few will make a good living at it, while the rest will simply scrape buy (and usually on inherited wealth).
A man, having made the same choices, would be looked upon as listless, unfocused, and, most certainly, undesirable. A woman?
Writing articles that wallow in self-pity and lack of success are a surefire road to failure.
"Argue for your limitations, and, sure enough, they're yours." -- Richard Bach
27
@dmckj Thank you for articulating my thoughts far better than I could. I appreciate you.
*I'm a Father of 2 daughters that would rather save money and feed their dreams and adventures. Its a selfish act where I enjoy seeing them living well.
8
@dmckj
Thanks. Well written.
2
@dmckj
Well I see that you wanted to take an opportunity to bash women but what exactly does this have to do with the article?
5
An intelligent article that upped my awareness...thank you.
I want to add something about my bias. When I was young man ( and intellectually malleable and not yet college educateded) I backpacked much of the world. A predominant observation emerged.
That of the MESS men and patriarchy have made of this world. Worldwide. I did not go looking, at all, for this.
Consequently, the last 40 years, I have been very sympathetic, somewhat even empathetic to women and and our struggle against misogyny. I love ( and lament) being even more of a feminist than many women I work with.
....a proud Emily's List member too !!
9
Well if your a minority, you worry about everything because once you walk out the door in the morning, you don't know if you are going to be walking back in.
Being a minority woman in this country is full of deliberate pitfalls that have been developed by white men, so please write an article that is inclusive of everyone.
4
What a sad, lonely piece. What about community friends and the things most people want?
10
@Michael Livingston - it is a conversation WOMEN need to have - not meant to be understood by all who do not live our lives.
4
People with a great deal of social capital, who salt their writing with academically sanctified, ‘right-thinking’ words like cisgendered, aren’t well suited to authoring a piece on disempowerment. They are too powerful and too comfortable to discuss it honestly, and lack the real will to end it, irrespective of who the abused may be.
Unsexy, uninspiring daily work is required to end or diminish systemic disempowerment of any group. That work tends to get in the way of sounding fine while decrying it. And sounding fine is the entire point of this piece.
17
Is the pen mightier than the sword? Not in this case. It's a personal story painted with philosophical generalizations-- believable then confusing. I think the author is better suited for a sword, and in Kill Bill "righteous anger", should go and slash up some stuff. Then maybe take a vacation from the ivory tower and learn from women who have little materially but real power and status, and then write a wise piece that is truly moving. Like a woman commented here, if someone is truly powerful, why the anger?
8
1) Who once said: "Men are like they are because women raised them"?
2) And why do so many women continue to support Trump?
3) It's a wild ride in this world for everyone.
16
When I think of the power of women, I first think of their hearts and their ability to transcend all limitations with love.
10
@ClydeS
You have that same power👍
You perhaps have been socialized to tamp it down. Embrace it! We are here to love one another.
6
@ClydeS
+ grit and perseverance and courage. It takes that the be a female anywhere in the world, cradle to grave, as well as some keen knowledge of self-defense.
4
I am so deeply confused about how the author can write an entire article about how women are put in danger because of our female bodies, and then accuse feminists of "reducing everything to biology." We are discriminated against because of our *bodies*: our ability to give birth, our smaller size, and the erroneous yet pervasive idea that we have a "female brain."
Trans people deserve better than transphobia, AND women must be able to talk about issues that affect women - female ones - alone. Because this is locus of our suffering. It's okay for women to just be concerned with the things that concern us; to imply otherwise, as the author does, is one way that others deny our power.
34
I lived in Istanbul for three years. I am blonde and tall, stand out in a crowd of Turks. I crossed the Straights everyday on public transpo, had some unwanted attention. But after a while, you develop a hide. I didn’t dress differently, or covered up my hair, but I carried myself strong. It was the best thing that I ever did, this journey into discovering my fierceness.
I teach third grade now. We study biographies and I pick the fierce women in history.
I grew up with a mother who promoted a life of subservience, and it was a long road to where I am. But worth every risk.
Teach girls and boys the advantage of equality for all.
33
Already reactions (reactionary?) have appeared claiming that women should not feel aggrieved, that they are not at a disadvantage etc. Along the lines of "it's your own fault, why aren't you more like a man?"
True, I sometimes find women difficut to understand, but in fact other men are often even harder to comprehend. Basically we are all different, all efforts to produce the standard human being being apparently doomed to failure (a good thing too!). Succumbing to "righteous anger" is not helpful, although feeling it is OK. Nor is it a bad thing to feel fear when alone in a dark and lonely place, or for that matter on a crowded suburban train . and men should be willing to admit to the same feelings.
And while there is still a lot to be done to create the "even playing field" for both sexes, resdentment and anger are unlikely to be of any constructive assistance. Men still have to learn about how women feel, and women need to understand the weakness which is often behind "macho" behaviour (many of them already do).
15
It looks to me like there is a gender war raging in America, and smack dab in the middle of that war is the asylum crisis. It appears that nothing will raise the hackles of a woman more than children in distress. But, to open our country to those from corrupt and violent cultures would be suicidal. So what is the solution? Shouting matches? Families at each other's throats? A slow motion civil war?
I am looking to the moderates out there.
4
There's a great book.
"The weaker Sex"
Which makes and proves the case by comparing mortality.
4
I am all for women's empowerment, equal opportunity, feminism. But something about this article is... off.
It is not right to excoriate fellow feminists who happen to believe that biology is important. Because, you know what? It is important! If you base your feminism on the ridiculous idea that men and women are completely interchangeable, then your system will fail. Feminism should be based on the belief that all human beings should have equal rights, despite their wonderfully differing attributes.
And it is not wise (and not correct and exhausting) to see misogyny every single place you look. You might not be quite as enlightened as you think. You should be prepared to admit that there were people--women and men--who came before you that were not irredeemable bigots. Some human systems are just; some are not. A little humility would go a long way.
53
Patriarchy is almost universal. In every human culture, women are less powerful than men. The reasons are complicated but mostly derive from female physiology, which, in its natural state, makes women unable to control their own reproduction. Add to it less physical strength, and we have the recipe for subjugation. But nature is mindless and indifferent. Civilization gives us tools to remedy what natural selection has unwittingly wrought. In contemporary society, physical strength matters less, while contraception and abortion finally enable human females to experience full personhood. Social power is the power to make choices. And it does not reside in the body but in the mind. Fooling ourselves that procreation, nurturing, anger, love or any other emotional response we share with animals will set us free is just that: a delusion. We are human beings defined by our intellect; and science has finally liberated us from slavery to our bodies. Power imbalances remain, but in the contemporary US they are small compared to what women experienced in the past and still experience in many Third World countries. We have been given freedom. That’s all that matters.
8
@Mor
If you think most cultures are patriarchal, you don't know much about cultures.
5
@Mor
"We have been given freedom." - not if you are a woman living in Alabama apparently.
We have no freedom if others get to decide what our freedoms are.
3
Men are hard. Women are soft. That is why we are all here. There is obvious "power" in hardness. There is less obvious "power" in softness, such as water wearing away a stone. Men being soft and women being hard goes against the natural order of things.
6
@Graham, great song from "Mulan 2" movie, called Lesson Number One. Speaks to this. You need both together.
1
@GRH Cheers!
1
It's all true, man's world is still the default and countless modern women and men can't seem to manage it, 2) the workplace still stinks especially for women, and 3) the medical system stinks especially if you aren't well off. What else is new. Better work hard, be honest, fall in love and get married. That's the best you can do.
2
Of course some women are strong in many ways and some are weaker. The same can be said for men. Strength is also shown by not whinning about life.
13
Has there ever been a time and place that is better for women in terms of health care, political rights, economic rights, well-being, legal status, and every other dimension that anyone cares to refer to? And if you cannot feel the progress that is being made on those dimensions, every day and in almost every place on earth, then you are frankly willfully blind. Sure, more is being done by well intentioned and empowered men and women every day. But to say that the world is rife with misogyny is to miss the picture, the progress and the incredible present we have built across gender lines for the benefit of all.
14
@John
Hard to square that with laws that disregard autonomy over my own body and the reality that I have a higher chance of dying in childbirth than women in Iran.
Or we could look at economic 'rights' and how women on balance still make 22 cents less than male counterparts.
Legally, a fetus that exists only because I do has more rights in 22 states than me.
I'm white, masters educated and married to a wonderful person for 32 years and those things all impact me.
If I am a black or brown woman -- all of the above are worse.
But, Thank-you for pointing out that I am, indeed, missing your picture.
16
Women are weak in the sense that they allow others to dominate them. Look at how many subordinate their rights, their lives to serve others, being their husbands or their children even with comparatively meager benefits to them.
Where women to be strong, they would never bring up sons who end up hurting other women, or daughter who think and act as second glass citizens.
Look at how many of us put up with limited rights all over the world. We are willing to cover ourselves to extinction, hide in our homes, accept that we are not good enough to be priests, accept that we are not good enough to travel alone, accept that we are not good enough to lead nations, accept that we have to paint our faces (and worse) to be liked by others, etc.
We are weaklings. Face facts so you can change them.
6
Getting a few more into engineering and computer science schools and the trades, e.g., electricians, masons, plumbers, might help--or was that too misogynistic for the backstage crew?
8
What a complainer. This world is a fight, lady, and men are in it to win. You can howl all you want, if sympathy is your goal, but it won't make you a stronger competitor.
10
@Kim FYI. They live longer and they are the wealthiest people in the world. Who is winning?
4
“We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.”
- G.K. Chesterton
9
"To work towards a world where righteous anger cannot be disregarded." Sophie wants the right to whine and to have us hear her whining!
6
"We cannot escape the fact that non-male pain is consistently underestimated. ... Moving away from the default of the cisgender white man..."
Oh please... if Mackintosh thinks glorifying victimization is going to help women she is probably mistaken. Everyone experiences (inner and outer) pain, and has to learn to deal with it through life. It's called individuation.
5
So much of politics, especially on the Left, is working through intensely personal demons.
12
@David I reluctantly have to agree. People can and should work through their personal demons, but they shouldn't politicize them. Let me add, however, that a lot of politics on the Right is motivated by personal demons, especially hatred of the Other.
3
Men are hard. Women are soft. That is why we are all here. There is obvious "power" in hardness. There is less obvious "power" in softness, such as water wearing away a stone.
1
Hmmm....
I grew up in a family where, perhaps with only one exception, the women were the strong, and certainly dominant, figures. I can't recall anything resembling the world you find yourself trapped in. My mother made my father's, and my brothers and my, lifestyle functional and possible. The same could be said for much/most of our extended family.
Working and living in Latin America over the past 20 or so years, I've noted with no small irony that these are, for the most part, strongly matriarchal societies. Women rule. When I told my Latina American wife that the American stereotype is that Latin women are 'oppressed' in a 'misogynistic macho' culture, she bursts out laughing. 'That's stupid', she says.
The endless playing of the victim card is a losing hand.
12
Ever try being a man a getting Paternity leave? Or the same work/life flexibility after children that women get? I agree with some of your points, and I consider myself a strong feminist - but your piece seems loaded with self-pity and well-trodden tropes about the perils of being a woman vs. being a man. It is polarizing and in my view far less productive than a dialogue that address the full picture vs. one half of it. You talk about "fear" and "Feminine Weakness" - but you are railing on some mystic "Power" that all men seem to have (I sure as heck do not have it, whatever it is). The opposite of Weakness is Strength, not Power. Find some. And I suggest doing it with men who are willing to stand by your side - because they understand what is just, and right, and realize the world is imbalanced. There are many of us out there. It is a shame to alienate us by assuming we are all alike and participating in some grand conspiracy against you.
20
@anonymous Or the man left in the office when three others are out for months on maternity leave?
2
Of course, you know that is the fault of the employer, not the women on mat leave.
6
I believe that women are subject to wrong for their entire lives. That said, women have the agency to fight for themselves and to refuse to be silenced.
Ms. Mackintosh's essay makes a certain amount of sense, but I do wish she would stop worrying about what men think and focus instead on what she knows to be right.
2
@K Yates The very fact that she was given a voice in the nation's most powerful newspaper helps prove your point.
This article is more women-as-victims stuff. Anyone can find examples of mistreatment of whatever group one chooses. I will point out a few things as food for thought. Women live longer than men, yet considerably more money is spent on women's health care per capita than on men. Perhaps we should be spending more money on men's health care? And white men's life expectancy if falling! More women graduate college. Perhaps we should have affirmative action for college men? Unemployment rates for men generally exceed those for women in years of recession. Perhaps we should have a program protecting men's jobs in these circumstances. It has been proposed that women should not have to pay tax on menstrual products. I propose that men should get a tax break on food, since they generally have to eat more.
What I really propose is that people like the author get a little less self-centered.
56
@MHW all of the gains you mention are recent developments. Affirmative action for men? Are you serious? Being white and male trumps any advantage (big and small) that any advantaged woman would have. Anecdotal perhaps, but as a donor to a family endowment to my alma mater, noticed the hustlers are women. They work harder to achieve and against many odds - the men don't work as hard and many have dropped out in my experience. Self centeredness works both ways - but I have seen fewer examples of men trying to do it all.
8
Women are weak by their own design. I went through the 60's when men reigned supreme in the business world, but I gained respect - a lot of it - by knowing my business better than others and by retaining my respect by not sleeping my way to the top of that world.
I had my share of sleepless nights with fatigue and self-questioning, but I never needed drugs - tho Cutty Sark was my occasional coping mechanism - but harming my body in any way never occurred to me. I also had my faith in the Almighty to get me through whatever tight spots would always lie ahead of me.
Lastly - I've had myriad surgeries, from hips to carotid artery to shoulders and back - but I still do Yoga, yard work and travel the continents. I've also always been fortunate to have experienced surgeons who've treated me like a female patient and not simply like a woman. Anyone treated like a woman and not like a patient in need should find another doctor.
17
@Snoocks2 have you ever thought about the fact that the men you worked with and received the same rewards or recognition as you didn’t have to know the business to the extent you did? That you perhaps had to work 10x harder to get the respect you deserve? That’s the misogyny.
12
@Niche Oh yes, they did have to know what I as doing, as I was committing Detroit's $$ to certain projects & not others, on my say-so. I similarly had the same MBA but found males often - sadly - do not always keep their credentials current nor do they particularly like extra study once that plaque is on the wall of their offices. I have always loved to look and learn - still do. That must be taught at a young age.
Women of my era were taught to do housework and cooking - I did love the cooking part - but I also went hunting/fishing w/my brothers & uncles. Further, women should encourage their daughters to get dirty, play ball and climb trees, if they can find any.
Nothing wrong w/finding enjoyment in what's considered a 'man's world' of occupation or enjoyment. And while I shot a black bear once, I was greatly saddened by the experience and found that trophy hunting was not for me, tho I did find catching fish and eating them over a camp fire during that time was exquisite fun (just not the cleaning part).
Lesson #1 for women/girls - learning never ends
3
Here's the thing. When you write in to say, this is not true, my experience is different, you are becoming part of the problem. Be glad if your experience is different. But LISTEN. We have to be able to hear and acknowledge experience that is different from ours. When we are defensive, we become offenders. Please let us just sit quietly and listen to what people are telling us. This writer is not accusing all men or women who disagree, she is talking about her experiences. And what she has to say is valuable, even if YOU are different.
27
@SFR
If that's what the author is doing, then why is their language sometimes so general? The only fair assumption with regard to the author's intent is to assume that they wrote exactly what they meant to write. We cannot assume the author is incompetent, or accidentally conveyed something other than their intended message. ("Well, what she REALLY meant to say is...")
"Elsewhere, we see women’s anger demonized and men’s placated. We have to prove ourselves calm, over and over and over, if we want to be taken seriously."
The author does not qualify this statement with "some women" or "some men". She is talking about all men, and all women.
If you are incapable of seeing this, then you are part of a problem. Not the same problem you ascribe to all of the people here with criticism, but a different, equally troubling problem.
10
@SFR
Agreed. It's like people who say "I'm not a racist. I have black friends" and don't realize they live in and are privileged by a culture that systematically closes the door to people of color in health care, workplace, the sports field, etc. Not everyone experiences the same level of harm from misogynist behaviors but we all participate in a culture that has dismissed rape, made it difficult to prosecute rapists, especially privileged white men (ie. Larry Nassar, certain Ivy League students, etc), and is now making decisions to halt any kind of abortion. I'm a privileged white cis woman and the older I get, the more I realize how the world has allowed violence against women for a very long time.
8
I hear you on the body and health aspects!
Nothing like having not one but two extremely aggressive pelvic exams in the ER because the elderly doctor assumes all gals have female problems and aren’t sick enough to have appendicitis.
Whereas actually we just aren’t so stubborn as to not go in until we’re too weak and in pain to stand up (looking at you, Uncle Dave!)
9
Of course Feminine Weakness is REAL. The proof is and has been all around us FOREVER ! In every culture and in most families, who does the most? Who is it that sets aside their own interests and health to be there for others? Who lives longer and whom do we want when we are ill or anxious?
The SCAM of Feminine Weakness? It exists only among weak men.
7
We bleed and do not die, we go to birth like to war, we multiply: from one, many. We are not powerless: we are feared. Hence, they need to contain us.
40
@rsf who is this mystical "they"? You sound like Donald Trump accusing half of America against a vast conspiracy against him.
5
If you are a male as I am, and feel some resistance to the ideas presented, can you at least admit that you simply have no idea of what it is like to spend even one day in this world as a female? And that if you did, perhaps your view of misogyny, unbalanced power-dynamics, sexism, etc. might be very different than the views you hold now? Are you capable of admitting that we do not fully understand what it is like to be a woman in a patriarchal society? That would be a good starting point...
71
@MCMA Thank you, MCMA. That is the truth. People who react with such defensiveness are not able to listen to others. Take in or try to take in their experiences. They immediately think, this will hurt ME. I sometimes think men and some women too are afraid of women because women give birth to us, and if they had the power of decision, they might have decided not to have US. I don't buy all the "I'm thinking about the babies" bit. If they were thinking about the babies, they'd make sure children, all children, had food, shelter, education, health care.
8
Meh. I can declare myself a woman and completely understand everything about my and other women’s struggles.
5
@MCMA
... you simply have no idea of what it is like to spend even one day in this world as a female?
converseley, no female has any idea of what is like to spend even one day in this world as a male. Not all males are alpha dogs, you know, and we also have to go thru obstacles and suffer humiliations. Daily. To put bread on the table.
11
As a 70 year old white male this stuff is very challenging for me. I was raised by a single female parent at a time when this was uncommon--everyone I knew had a Dad at home. Talk about power! My mother maintained a household and gave us a life that didn't feel economically deprived when we were in fact much poorer than our peers. She was the strongest person I've ever known, by far. Given this fact, it is hard for me to see myself as a misogynist. But everything I read seems to me an oversimplification of a very complex issue. We probably do need a world where every variety of gender and sexual identity and practice (or most of them) is accepted and not demonized. And we certainly need a world where opportunity is balanced between the sexes. I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I had to look up "cisgender". I think most of us are always going to want to live in a world where men and women play somewhat different roles in society just because there are differences that are more than cultural. Sometimes we are different by choice and disposition, and not by circumstance. Finally, any conversation on this topic including this comment leaves me feeling that I haven't really made the point as I see it. My Mom had to give up her good job when the men came back from WWII. But this burning conviction some people have that the problem lies with the basic infrastructure of our society is inadequate to the task. We cannot learn when we already have all the answers.
20
@Rod Snyder Your mother sounds like an amazing person. Lucky you. But I have to disagree with the proposition that women will always occupy somewhat different roles, which means, in the context of your comment, a more nurturing role. This is societally constructed and has very little to do with actual capabilities. Just because we have become used to role differentiation doesn't mean it has to be. Richard Prum, the author of "The Evolution of Beauty," ends his fascinating book by suggesting, albeit with caution, that culture is what man invented to mitigate the role of female power in natural selection. I highly recommend the book
7
@Ambroisine Your comment is self-contradictory. Are you arguing for blank slatism or agreeing that humans exhibit biological gender dimorphism in behavior that is mediated by culture?
I am 72 and had a mother who did something non of my friends parents did...she told me I should be qualified for a job to support myself, and I didn't have to marry. I was blessed to be white, born female, but I was heavy and had to endure the world telling me I looked bad. My greatest gift was that I was the child of my parents happy marriage. I am a 50s feminist. Personally for me liberation was daily when I could wear pants which never even occurred to me in high school or good weather in college, and never ever had to wear stockings again much less have to make sure I had money to buy them. My personal life view is that every living thing has weakness and an enlightened being accepts that and doesn't need to do it all by itself. None of the life on this planet could make it alone. By the way I married in my 40s and have no birth children but there are lots of people who accept help even thought they are not my children.
15
@jennie
Oh, do I hear you. I grew up heavy in the 90's. My brother was heavy as well, but accepted, and valued. I on the other hand was ceaselessly teased along with the other heavy girl in my class. This continued through college. I eventually lost the weight, and still, to this day, in professional settings hear hatred lobbed about women's weight. I had a client once tell me "you aren't fat enough to shop at WalMart".
I don't think any group of people get more hatred lobbed at them than fat white women.
The funny thing is that for me, being fit is at the cost of what I can offer society. I see heavy women my age being good moms, volunteering, active in community. Meanwhile, my life is gym/work/meal prep/sleep/selfcare. I can really coast through life on my appearance, which I work hard to maintain because I know what losing it costs me.
Men don't have to deal with that.
11
"Cisgendered" man here.
Good for Ms. Mackintosh for finding the power within her. What does this have to do with the rest of us? Perhaps I come from a different world.
In the clinic where I work %80 of the employees are women, and at least half of them are non white. My boss is a woman, who is just as hellbent on extracting every last bit of productivity from us as a man would. She's every bit as aggressive and unkind as any male boss I've had.
Women's complaints are taken very seriously and thoroughly investigate and treated. We have excellent women's health professionals, and contraception is routinely discussed as part of health maintenance. The heart attack thing is ancient history; we figured that out about 20 years ago. Women are more likely to express internal conflict through somatic complaints, and men through acting out. Both need treatment.
My wife is far more powerful than I, both in her earning capacity, and in family dynamics.
What scares me most is that the halls of power will become populated by rage-filled self righteous women with personal agendas, e.g. Ilhan Omar. Try that on for misuse of power.
31
And as you wrote that, someone in a red state is drafting yet another piece of legislation to wrest our freedom away by depriving us over control of our very own bodies.
24
@A Doctor
In *your* office, this is the case. But as a man of science, surely you understand that a single anecdote does not a culturally systemic change make.
If you fear angry women with agendas in Congress, then work with us to help us succeed *outside* of your office. Work towards female bodily autonomy. Teach your colleagues that women know their bodies as well as any man.
When I claim rape and it's as trusted and believed as you are for claiming a hit-and-run car accident, I'll be less angry. When my body has the same rights and respect as a corpse, I'll be less angry. When I go into a job interview and I know that my knowledge carries the same respect as men with my experience and education, I'll be less angry.
Until then, I guess you'll be afraid. And honestly, it's about time the men in this country were. Because quite frankly, I'm tired of being the one with the pepperspray in my purse because I might just choose to wear the wrong thing on the wrong day at the wrong club. I'm happy to hand it off to a man for once.
45
@A Doctor
You work in a medical field.
The rest of us probably work for a man, make less than he does. I recently complained about a manager in my office who makes degrading comments regularly (in front of other coworkers).... he's been complained about but never replaced.
I imagine that Omar, as a muslim in the US and as a woman has a special kind of rage brewing in her. I can't understand the source of her anger, but I can see why, in a country that demonizes her religion, she might have some rightful hate kicking around.
By the way, there are also many white men out there raging around and flying off the handle. From Trump to school shooters, to legislators in Alabama, plenty of self righteous men with personal agendas, rage and power misuse.
9
The line about the NASA spacewalk makes me wonder about the whole article. The issue wasn't that NASA, through ignorance, only had suits that fit men. It wasn't a "man vs woman" issue at all. An astronaut, who happened to be a woman, decided based on an earlier spacewalk that the large suit she thought was proper for her didn't fit as well in space as it did on the ground. Another medium suit was available but it was easier to swap astronauts than it was to reconfigure spacesuits.
It took me about 10 seconds to locate the article that described this, and perhaps 2 minutes of reading. Which makes me think the author spends more time self-analyzing than worrying about facts.
51
@David Goldberg What if one of the male astronauts had had an ill-fitting suit. There were ones available, according to how I read your note, but someone decided it was easier to swap astronauts? What the devil do you think is going on? I wish every man saying yes, but to this and other pieces in which women describe experiences could be turned into a woman for just one day.
4
@SFR It takes time, lots of time, to configure a spacesuit. The components for a medium suit were available, but it would have taken a lot of time to get the suit set up.
But please, don't believe me, take the 10 seconds to use Google and look it up for yourself.
3
So powerless that women outlive men by years, everywhere.
17
@Observer of the Zeitgeist Ha ha. My grandmother, born in 1870, had two husbands. One spent all the money her father had left her to gamble and died, leaving her with two small children and an aged mother to support. She taught French and music in a girls school and made it through. Her second husband made a fortune in the railroads, and died, and she said to me, "I will miss him, but now I am old, widowed, and I can finally do what I want to do." Good thing she outlived the men. She learned investment and had a fine 20 years. But. Sir: It should not have been that way. With her brains and energy, what would she have done at 30 if she'd been free to choose?
9
@Observer of the Zeitgeist In populations where women commonly have 10 or more children, they don't live as long as the men.
2
One suspects that Ms Mackintosh could write the same piece sitting in one of the women-and-children-only lifeboats of the Titanic, complaining about misogyny, the discounting of female pain, and that the seats and blankets were designed for cis males, drowning herself in self pity while a ship full of cis males drowned in actual water all around her.
Unfortunately, instead of facilitating everyone in having a great life regardless of their gender, too much feminist thinking has become an endless and monotonous Eeyore-ish moan, a fit accompaniment to a good long wallow in misery.
Life isn’t beer and skittles for men either. I would point out the unique challenges men face that women do not, or perhaps some of the challenges that men and women share, but honestly, I don’t think you care. Nor do I think evidence, no matter how much presented, would change your mind.
Also, complaining isn’t manly... we tell men to “man up” when they complain. When women complain, it’s sort of expected. Which is why seeing yet another piece complaining about oppression and men in general by a women privileged enough to be printed in the pages of the Times isn’t surprising.
Want to surprise me? Have a man write about problems that men face on the opinion page. That would knock me flat on my back. And the comments from women telling him to “man up” would be richly ironic.
69
@Serrated Thoughts So no one can complain about misogyny today, because back in 1912, women were allowed on the Titanic's lifeboats first? Is that a joke?
No one thinks that life is perfect for men. That statement did not appear in the article. Google "male privilege" and see if you recognize any.
And for the record, I have never heard any of my women friends say "Man Up." It is just plain rude.
25
@Serrated Thoughts
There are loads of sites/groups dedicated to male issues, but to no ones surprise -- they are fairly recent relative to those places for women and people of color.
Men are now feeling the sustained push-back against a structure that exists to support them in achieving work and family that does not work for women in the same way.
Surely you know why that is.
It is not a zero sum game to allow women to give voice to the roles they play relative to males in our society.
Voicing my concerns takes nothing from your ability to move through the world in the same way you always have, or perhaps the way you always should have.
The author is perhaps coming off as 'Eeyore-ish' to you because you haven't experienced what she's describing. Why do you feel it's necessary to comment negatively about it?
Is it possible that you might describe being chastised to 'man-up' and someone else would comment negatively? It's equally ridiculous.
Any person who puts an Op-Ed out in the world is brave. It's easy to sit back and critique what a person writes; you yourself beg a man to write a piece about the problems they face.
Well, be brave, open yourself up to other folks like you who may describe your real concerns as 'Eeyore-ish' -- but also be open to the possibility that women and men both have real concerns, and voicing them doesn't diminish the importance of either.
6
@Serrated Thoughts
It really seems to me like you're just mad that someone's trying to have a conversation that isn't focused on your and your needs. Men have controlled the conversation for most of human history. They've used a lot of that time creating and maintaining social, religious, economic, and political systems that prioritize men's rights and needs. Can't you just let someone else have the mic for once?
"Want to surprise me? Have a man write about problems that men face on the opinion page. That would knock me flat on my back."
Here you go, the title of an op-ed piece published yesterday in this paper. Theoretically yes this issue applies to women too but I am sure you are aware that men serve in disproportionate numbers.
"Congress Should End a ‘Harsh and Unfair’ Rule That Blocks Troops From Court"
Let me know if you need a hand getting up from the ground.
4
When I was growing up, we couldn’t run marathons or play full court basketball. Today women are still humiliated by imposing “Ladies’” tees in golf, shorter routes in cycling races, and fewer fewer match sets in tennis. It’s time to bust the testosterone myth once and for all.
7
@Linda Moore
Uh....the reason why there are shorter matches for women's tennis is that the women have preferred it that way. Women in tennis successfully changed the pay structure (even thought, in general, top men's matches are more highly watched that top women's matches), and they are certainly capable of changing match lengths without being told to.
I would personally prefer longer women's matches.
5
@Linda Moore
This is for a reason. The Williams sisters were defeated long time ago by an useeded man player. The national Australian soccer team was defeated recently by an unkown sub-17 boys' soccer team. Women atheletes complain about trans-woman atheletes. And so and so.
No professional woman athlete would agree with you.
4
Just stop. Strength comes from within. It's a personal choice. Only you can make you powerless and only you can make you strong. I'm a tiny thing, barely 5'4" and under 100 pounds, but I've never felt weak in my life. I'm not weak. I choose not to be.
What is it with this obsession people seem to have now with referring to themselves as bodies? As though our skin is some canvas upon which all the world's sins are painted against our will? You want to talk about bodies? I'm cute and I'm Asian. I'm a walking, talking fetish for a lot of people. You know what? That's their problem not mine. I'm not just my body.
I'm currently in med school, but apparently haven't gotten to the class yet where I'm taught to ignore other women's pain. Does it happen? Sure, it might. Some doctors are jerks. Find a better one. She (or maybe even he) is out there.
Is misogyny a problem? Yes. But you're not doing yourself any favors defining yourself by it or through your relationship with it. Besides, take a look around the world. You and I have it a lot better than most of the women on the planet. It's true, as women we have concerns men don't. That won't change. Accommodate and overcome. I don't walk through dark places alone either - though really that's good advice for anyone.
The end of the column seems at least a little hopeful, but I'm not sure I believe the author. Victimhood is a poor foundation for strength, and of the two she seems far more enamored of the former. It's sad.
87
@Aiya
Yes. I'm an older "cisgender white (appearance-wise) male". Thanks to the impression my very bright, very principled mother made on me I grew up with the appreciation that everyone (including all women) were my complete and total equal. That was a rule. And that was a rule that just happened to be both true and completely worthy... because it was true.
I often found myself puzzled by people who could not accept something that to me was obvious. I was disgusted by the racists and misogynists and saddened by their victims' all-too-often acceptance of the lies.
I am heartened by people like Aiya. People who can accept the truth for what it is, spurn stupidity, and go about their business of making the world a better place... as they see fit with no accommodation to the unfortunate nonsense.
12
What I find annoying about these articles is that they reduce people to bit players in larger ideologies "the Patriarchy," in this case, and rob them of any personal agency.
18
I agreed with everything in this article, but it self-devalued its message by using the "P word": "patriarchy".
Once someone (male or female) injects that word into an opinion piece, the piece becomes loaded and many readers - especially male readers like me who need to hear this message - tune-out (I didn't) due to a perceived misandrist bias.
People who use "patriarchy": You need to understand something:
While there is a de facto "patriarchy" in many ways, we males do not have some sort of convention or agenda to oppress women. Sure, some of us are real [persons whose description is inappropriate for print], but many of us are genuine feminists who love women and want the best for them and articles like this do help with our "awakening" to the female experience. ("The Power" by Naomi Alderman was a critical awakening for me of the female perspective).
Anyway, please, this comment is meant to help: It's not so much women who need to learn about women's pain, etc. Sure, this article will find nodding women in agreement and recognition of what is being said. But, the real target audience for opinion pieces like this is men - we men are the ones who need to get the message. Using "patriarchy" in an opinion piece like this defeats that purpose of the message for many of the men who desperately need to "get it".
9
@VJR
The author is simply calling it what it is. It is patriarchy. She is not saying that men have an agenda to oppress women. It's not personal to any one man. She is saying that there is an oppressive system that is propped up by patriarchal beliefs, and they benefit some and hurt everyone.
Instead of telling women how to write an op-ed, how about, as a fellow feminist and ally, you tell other male readers to not take discussions of patriarchy so personally and read with an open mind? I for one have a lot more faith in men to be thoughtful readers and not run at the sight of the word "patriarchy".
10
@VJR With all due respect, you have a distorted and incorrect definition of "patriarchy," so please stop insisting that we use the word. Patriarchy is an ideology and an hegemonic system, it is not "some sort of convention or agenda." It is far more systemic and hegemonic than you suggest.
Until you live life as a woman under patriarchy, you can't really understand how patriarchy works to your benefit and how it (yes - systematically) "oppresses" women.
Furthermore, though men demonstrably benefit as a result of patriarchal gender roles and rules, in many ways, the ideology of patriarchy also limits males - in ways they cannot fully realize or understand.
This is one of the many things we can learn from the fluid transgender and nonbinary community and those who reject and question gender roles.
3
@dlobster
As to this:
"I for one have a lot more faith in men to be thoughtful readers and not run at the sight of the word 'patriarchy'"
Don't. That's one reason how Trump got elected.
1
Unfortunately, female power is still contingent on females having places of power in the US government. Why a woman would support the Trump administration, or any Republican in the US House or Senate, is beyond me. I often find that women destroy other women as a way to get the attention of men in power. This is the world that "conservatives" want and support.
12
"I have a body that lets me experience power in all its forms."
At 27 in 2016, yes. Your body was doing just fine, after all. Try being 60 in 2016. Hear me roar. Cough, cough, creak, creak.
But in the end, this piece is not about bodies and power at all. The "body" is just a trendy academic-intellectual metaphor, more tribal talisman than metaphor, that gets deployed along the way. In the end, what this piece comes down to is the author's mistaking of "righteous anger" for power.
The problem with righteous anger is that, while it may make one feel powerful, it's actually debilitating. Anger moves us, but anger makes us stupid: uncircumspect of the limits of our own thought and experience; blind to potential allies and enemies alike; and embarrassingly unaware of the easily ridiculed narcissistic nonsense it leads us to declaim with utter conviction.
Gender discrimination is real and deeply woven into our culture. But what the author experienced at 27 in 2016 -- writing her first novel, mind you -- is readily understood not so much as being a woman as going through a bout of gender-indiscriminate, garden-variety career anxiety, which is really a luxury to have because it indicates one has some privileged prospect of having a career at all, which most, men and women, just don't. No worries, crossing 60 cures any relapses of career anxiety for good.
As for power, truly powerful people are not angry. Why should they be? They are powerful.
22
If I understood you correctly, the historical "power" of women which you claim has been downplayed is the "power of the hysterical woman, the terrifying woman, righteously angry." Really? That's like saying a child has power based on its ability to throw a tantrum. If that is your definition of power it is pretty weak.
12
Starting 50 years ago women wanted to be treated equal with the same opportunities as men. Today women graduate at higher rates then men and have unbound opportunities that were unthinkable before. Yet they still grouse and complain about how unfair it all is. Life is a struggle, it always has been and men struggle just as much as women to find their way in life. The latest excuses for women are patriarchy and mysogyny! The western world is not rife with misogyny as the author claims, just the opposite. You have opportunities, take them. People are just tired of the constant whining.
21
@Evitzee
For all the talk about how unfair life is to men, how women are graduating from college at higher rates, have unbound opportunities unthinkable before, is a talking point of the 'white male as victim' stream of things, that underlies a lot of the GOP and Trump agenda (and I am a middle aged, white man writing this).While some of the tone of this troubles me, it is projecting things that may or may not be true for all people, I also think that you and others who claim "white male victimhood" need to look, not at your own experience (especially looking only at blue collar white males), but look at the world as it exists. Take a look at Congress, where while women have made progress, they still are a distinct minority; we never have had a women president and only 1 serious candidate running in the actual election for president. Women are still a minority of corporate CEO's and among the executives, it is still very much a white, male world. In tech and science, there is a huge effort being made to create an environment where women are taken seriously and not face, in things like coding, the 'bro culture' that can dismiss them . My answer to you would be women are graduating from college at higher rates then men, yet it doesn't show in outcomes in the real world, with similar backgrounds and abilities a woman will often fare less well than a man.
5
@Evitzee
Nah, I'm not going to thank you for being "less" oppressed than my mother was 50 years ago. Black women in your home state have maternal death rates worse than most third world countries. Still oppression.
3
Frankly I think it’s privilege that begets power. And unfortunately that’s the caste system humans have created (which will lead ultimately to our own self-destruction). Those who are privileged (primarily affluent white people) get all the power. And the rest of us (lowly nonwhite serfs) are just vying for a small sliver of it.
7
Hey Zareen!
There are plenty of lowly whites out here too! We could all join forces and fight for more money and power together!
Or we can just talk about how bad white people are...
Personally, I’m still waiting to find out where my rich white father, who would confer all this white privilege, upon this lowly illegitimately-born, old white woman- where is he?
Many other whites do not have a powerful white father to loan them say, a million dollars a la Trump-
Replace ‘white privilege’ with ‘rich privilege’ and we would have an unstoppable force of the underclass united to create a better country for us all- imagine the defense budget used to educate every child in America according to their talents?
Why not?
2
@Marlene Barbera
Sure why not? But you do have to admit that most rich people are melanin-challenged, right? All my life I’ve had to deal with entitled overlords who continue to exercise complete power and control over those of us who are less affluent/privileged. That’s the main reason I’m supporting Bernie Sanders for president in 2020. In my opinion, he’s the only candidate in the race who is genuinely cares about empowering people representing the underclass. So, I do agree overall with your comment, Marlene.
3
I remember reading Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Brownmiller, Marilyn French, et al. and being motivated. Now I read buzzword-laden screeds like this and just roll my eyes. Must we magnify all the ways we can be triggered and oppressed? It's like overusing exclamation points. When everything is shouted, nothing stands out.
29
I find the Comments to be interesting and in many ways more revealing than the article. My own biases tend to favor women. Generalizing, I find women to be better listeners than men and better able to bridge differences & solve problems.
My other biases include age, recognizing the value of energy in youth and wisdom in logging more trips around the sun. But finding a balance is too much stereotyping for me. Generalities about age are no substitute for assessing the energy and wisdom in each person.
But these biases and others are my own. I do not project them onto others (of my age or gender or race or political persuasion or...) or at least I hope I don't do that.
If there are some generalities in the article that offend, they would seem to come from a place of self awareness and honesty. If we examine them without being reflexively defensive or critical (while allowing for some disagreement), we might learn something - about the author and maybe even about ourselves.
6
@tomreel
Thanks for your comment. It is so encouraging after reading all the angst in reaction to the article. I did not read it as a manifesto, just someone showing us the journey they have experienced.
1
I realize that every woman looks at life differently, but being a powerless victim has rarely ever crossed my mind. For 25 years I've worked in a career dominated by men; I moved myself alone cross country; I cut my own firewood, paint my own home, plow & maintain my own road; I own a skid steer; I was a volunteer firefighter; I've been threatened with a knife by a would be rapist hiding in my house (that's where gun ownership served me well, twice); I've been stalked while out hiking. Since it never occurred to me that I was powerless, I guess I've never once felt "feminine weakness". And maybe since I don't project that, I am not treated that way.
29
Please see how many 2020 female candidates (including those for President) are elected if they go around expressing “righteous anger.”
About half of voters are men, and I don’t think most of them will respond positively to (vote for) women who are noisy and angry.
Of course women should be free to express themselves; however, if the goal is to get elected, there are non-confrontational ways to make oneself heard and to be persuasive.
17
I agree "feminine weakness" is a scam, which makes it odd that the author emphasizes it as much as she does. She seems to be speaking for (and to) a small well-educated youngish group of apparently very anxious women. The world she describes was never the world I lived in. Still isn't. I am not sure why the article is accompanied by a gray-haired older woman, but most women of my generation (b. 1964) who look like that were able to take advantage of the changes wrought by various women's movements and economic changes that favored intellectual/creative/managerial skills over brute strength. I find it puzzling and ironic that a generation of women raised on "girl power" positiveness feels so dis-empowered and weak.
53
Have you noticed what’s happening with abortion rights these days? You and I (also born in 1964) grew up during an era of expanding rights for women. Young women these days are growing up during a time when the opposite is happening. I would be anxious too.
25
I love the photo accompanying this article. However, I doubt it’s the author. Older females who are not trying to fudge their age (i.e., letting the world see their lovely gray/silver locks) are quite powerful in my eyes because they refuse to conform to society’s narrow prescriptions of what women should look like. In other words, they’re not buying into the scam that is the anti-aging beauty and cosmetics industry.
31
This is a good article, but a little one-sided. I'd like to remind the author that the person who wrote that abominable Alabama anti-abortion bill was female. The majority of white women voted for Trump. Not all women are on women's side, astonishingly.
In addition, there are millions of men, like myself, who love women. I trust women more than men, I have far more female friends than male, and I'm thoroughly in favor of gender equality. When I see an argument suddenly turn physical on the street, I always instinctively step in on the side of the woman. If it's between two men, I don't care nearly as much if the fight gets stopped.
So, we do live in a patriarchy, although it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Women do get minimized and suppressed, again nowhere near as badly as in the past. We have better examples of equality to aspire to, almost all in Western Europe, but we're far more advanced in this than most of the world too.
And women who despair at the current state of affairs should keep in mind, not all women are on your side, but millions of men are. And things do keep getting better, don't lose hope.
32
@Dan Stackhouse
Yes, it's incredibly painful and frustrating that white women have been unable to unify and vote in our own best interests, unlike other marginalized groups. I think in some ways gender equality will always be harder to tackle than issues like racial equality because the majority of couples are mixed gender. Gender equality doesn't mean passing a law that allows the family across the street to have more rights, it means a huge number of people digging deep and changing the dynamics within their own homes. It means women reconciling the fact that they love the men in their lives so much, but being willing to rock the boat and ask for more. A lot of women are bullied by their male partners to vote republican, and a lot of them have bought into the idea that it's a zero sum game, and that evil feminists are out to take things from their husbands.
Re: things are getting better: yes, but they are also getting worse. No progress is permanent, we need to be vigilant and keep fighting to prevent going backwards.
13
@Dan Stackhouse A majority of women did not vote for Trump. A majority of white Republican women voted for Trump. There are more of us in this country than female GOP followers. And we won the election, by milliions of votes.
15
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
6
As a woman, I don't recognize any of the physical power this article goes on and on about. Having a female body is about learning powerlessness, and not just in the context of men. If all the men on the planet disappeared tomorrow, I would still be left with the pain and expense and discomfort of bleeding (which is like being incontinent for 7 days every month), the problems of menopause, and the huge physical risks and toll of pregnancy (as detailed in another valuable op-ed, Pregnancy Kills). The female body is one which often breaks when it does what it biologically developed to do (give birth) and which causes me reproductive pain even when I'm not pregnant. It changed my childhood by making me deal with sexuality when I was just 11. No matter how kind the partner, most of us experience pain the first time we have sex because of our bodies. Thanks for nothing.
The only things that have brought us power are the tools that subvert the issues our bodies give us. Look at the documentary that won for the Oscar shorts category--Period. End of Story. Because without getting menstrual pads to girls and women, their lives are manipulated into powerlessness by this involuntary monthly incapacity. That's the power of women's bodies: being opted into a lifetime of pain and bleeding.
50
I know that it is very exhausting to go around believing that you're "less than," and even more so to believe that others see you that way. And yes, powerless is a good word for how that can feel.
I of course have had my own experiences with this, just by virtue of being human. And while in the moment I often blamed "someone else" for how I was feeling, I never fell into the trap of blaming an entire class of people for my suffering.
I have heard more women talking about the patriarchy and mysogyny in the last 18 months than I have in the last four decades. I have heard women making condescending and derogatory comments about men, sneering about being "mansplained" to, and generally blaming the male species for anything and everything.
Most alarmingly, I have witnessed women that I know suddenly rewriting their own history in their heads. Women who once felt confident and powerful and never felt anything but equal to men are now starting to revise their narrative and believe that they have been wronged their whole life. They went from confidence to insecurity, from feeling free to feeling oppressed, both in an alarmingly short time and based on nothing more than the "story" currently in vogue.
No thank you. Inconvenient and uncomfortable as it can be sometimes, I will continue to take responsibility for my own lot in life.
135
@Kristin Excellent point. Today all the power is in saying you are a victim of institutional, often "invisible", power structures. So (bear with me) claiming lack of power is the fastest route to power.
40
Thank you Kristen! I agree.
Plus, being a woman is not only about being less powerful relative to men. In articles like this, motherhood is always left out of the script. Women have the power to create life, and then through the work of mothering and childcare, we raise up and educate children. Women have more power over other people than men will ever experience!
My teenage children still adore and listen to me — they still hold dear the beliefs that I taught them. Men don’t have this opportunity, at least not to the same extent.
Beyond this, women also do have some sort of sexual power over men, which is entirely unacknowledged by modern feminism. People talk about misogyny but men will tolerate more and be more protective of women than they will of other men. Often it’s men whom men hate — they are the chief victims of each other’s violence, after all.
And lastly, let’s not forget, women have choices. We can choose to be mothers (which men can’t — and is so much more than being a father). Or we can choose a more traditionally masculine life, focused on career. We can act feminine or masculine and people are usually pretty accepting of it. I would even say that it’s easier to be a female engineer than a male stay at home dad.
~
I have never felt as depressed and powerless as I do today about being a woman. I need to stop reading the NYTs! Because nothing has changed for the worse in my life, at least.
42
@C
Reading this had me thinking about my Mom, who I’ve always seen as a a superhero, even after I’ve been on this earth for a few decades.
I cherish the good relationship we have and I pray for her continued good health, as well as my father’s. I don’t know what I would do without either of my parents, who have given me so much in life and [I believe] raised me to be kind to all, and treat people as people without regard to sex/race.
11
This piece shows the self absorbed aspect of some of feminism. As a man who was big and powerful in his 20s (now 67) there was no question who was more powerful, me or my 5'1" wife. It was not an issue for us, but it was simply true. To imagine that a man should not view women as physically weaker is absurd. We should do our best to remove oppression, but when alone, my wife is leery of places that would not bother me.
43
Yes but can you explain the men who carry guns for self-protection? What are they afraid of (leery of) that concerns little ole me not at all. Men’s physical size has not made them fearless; I see many stronger, braver women.
Not that it’s a competition, of course.
6
I think the issue is that the physical "power" overrides all other power. It reinforces "superiority", not just of body but also of mind. It's a ticket to dismiss or undermine the female as weak, not just in body but also in mind.
It's a high school mentality, where the weak are swallowed by the strong. This also includes traits in men that are considered "weak" - empathy, sorrow, compassion, beauty, etc. Intelligence is also often a victim - brawn over brains, right?
5
The two don’t have a cause and effect relationship. Please don’t entangle these two issues because encouraging positive masculinity and openness about young men’s mental health is a real issue. Gun reform laws and the $$$ and laws that allow the manufacture and sale plus prohibit background checks prior to sale and a national registry of trained and responsible gun owners in the USA is its own critical, pressing, and unaddressed public health issue.
I was born in 1945, my childhood spent during the years of Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best. I was baptized into the Catholic Church. Everywhere a child, teen, or woman turned we were told to stay in our place. We were the “Second Sex,” Adam’s Rib who biblically led men astray beginning with the mythical Garden of Eden. Here we are in 2019 still fighting for our rightful place in society, our rightful place in our own bodies. This should not be and can not be continued. We are strong. During my life of now 3/4’s of a century, I am more than convinced that we are not, have never been, the other sex. I am not exaggerating when I say we have endured more personal injustices than our male counterparts. We have more than endured...we have become more powerful and stronger within. We together are capable of soaring. Let us never forget that, never become discouraged or disheartened.
55
@KathyLollock: I totally agree re: women not being “the other sex”. As my physician father pointed out to me, the human default setting, biologically speaking, is actually female, in that the cis-female setting is 2 X chromosomes and the cis-male is 1 X and 1 Y chromosome. That was unknown when Genesis and the story of Eden was written, but from a biological perspective it would be more accurate,metaphorically speaking, to say that Adam was created from one of Eve’s ribs rather than the reverse. That one male Y chromosome has to work very hard to assert itself, which may underlie some of male insecurity about being “masculine enough” and not being too “feminine”. Re: the basic struggle to be male, my father also pointed out that more males die in uterus and in the first few years of life than females. Viewed from these angles, there is a case to be made for men being called “the other sex”, not women.
I dream of a day - one I likely will not live to see, as I am already a senior - in which women and men are true partners in all walks of life, understanding and respecting each other as full human beings with both strengths and weaknesses, founded on an in-depth understanding of their own emotions and the ability to manage/express them in ways that are beneficial for both themselves and others. We have a long way to go, but I am greatly encouraged by and applaud all the men already on that path. When everyone is supported to become their fullest selves, we all benefit.
8
"We cannot escape the fact that non-male pain is consistently underestimated."
The difficulty is that the NYT routinely presents a biased view of the genders. Here are some facts:
Four times as many men as women commit suicide.
Millions of men were sent forcibly to Vietnam. Some 60,000 never came back.
Men are the majority of our prisoners and we imprison people at several times the rate of Europe. Most of the victims of our enthusiasm for prisons are men.
Such facts will not appear in the New York Times.
You, on the ohter hand, will get front page coverage. If the NYT thinks they will bring about a healthy relationship between the genders this way they are dreaming.
81
@Ludwig. I agree that testosterone poisoning is as lethal to men and society as estrogen has been to women —- NOT. Testosterone produces both strength and aggression. Do not confuse the one for the other.
It’s men’s aggression that kills both them and others and continues to do so around the world and to the planet as well.
10
@Ludwig have you read the Times? The Times covered the Vietnam War (I was a teenager at the time) and the casualties were noted. Also noted are the numbers of men in prison. This is an opinion piece - that's all.
7
@Ludwig
If males behaved better, there wouldn’t be war; they wouldn’t be sent to prison.
8
To the men responding in a negative way regarding this article...what so upsets you about a woman fighting through cultural blockades and coming through more empowered moves you to respond dismissively?
The fact you feel duty bound to try to diminish someone finally realizing her own power proves the entire point of the article. LOL.
290
@Barbara - Yes. Brilliant. The author didn’t need to seek evidence backing up her assertions. She need only read some of these comments.
33
@Barbara - I'm a woman and I was turned off by this piece. From the comments, it seems other women were too. Real power does not come from putting down the other side, and this is what the author is doing. As a woman happily married to a wonderful man, as the mother of a sensitive, loving son, and with two terrific brothers and a dad I adore, I resent it when women make blanket negative comments about men.
117
@C I didn't pick up on this--women v men--at all. Perhaps that's because I've experienced much of what the writer has mentioned. I had a wonderful husband who saw my pain and supported my reactions. He, too, was a feminist. Perhaps, again, it's a difference in our experiences that cause you and me to see things differently. I wasn't allowed to enter my chosen professional because I'm a woman. I had to stay in the woman's world of teaching--and, even there, was treated as second class by the men at the top. I had a condition that went diagnosed for 20 years. Instead of heeding my pain and dysfunction, I was told to get counseling and, therefore. lost years of my life.
43
You know what’s misogynist and patriarchal? Using the term “cis,” which insinuates that men have power because of how they “identify.” Until recently, this has not been a concept even known in patriarchy, which relies on the sexedness of bodies for its abuse of power. However, gender self-identification is now being warped to reinscribe and strengthen patriarchy. (See: Pips Bunce.)
You know what’s misogynist and patriarchal? Claiming that feminists are aligning with the right wing and “reducing everything to biology.” (Really? Everything? Is this eighth grade?) In fact, radical feminists come from the left to *contest* biological essentialism and gender stereotyping as well. It’s distasteful and misogynist to put forth such a bad-faith, unsupported claim when women’s bodily autonomy is at stake in this country. It’s not how we “identify” that is affected by the efforts to undo Roe.
You know what’s misogynist and patriarchal? The term “non-male.” That’s female erasure right there. “Non-male pain,” indeed.
New York Times, could you please stop with these vacuous articles that package misogyny in self-empowerment clothing?
Mackintosh gets one thing right, though: women can reinforce our own powerlessness, as she does by glibly discounting biology—while simultaneously acknowledging it, in a feat of cognitive dissonance—and shaming women strong enough to stand up and recognize its role in our oppression.
68
@Rose Liz, "cis" just means "on the side of" - as in if you are a woman and you identify as "cisgender", you merely identify with the gender you were born with. I am a cisgendered woman, for example. It is not a term to use only regarding men. You can think of "trans" as the opposite of "cis". As we say in the U.S. "trans-Atlantic."
8
@Russian Princess This is the boilerplate response: to presume to define the term when the listener knows full well what it means and, frankly, is many steps ahead in analysis. I reject it for the reason I mentioned, as do many other feminists. I do not "identify" as cis, and you do not have the right to misgender me by assuming I do from my words, appearance, or other characteristics.
18
To Liz Rose, I agree! Well put.
9
When I was in my twenties and in grad school, I worked uptown late into the evening and took the train home. I was walking down the street to my apt when a man held me with a knife. I told him, I was tired and was going home. At the time, I wasn't thinking but responding to being attacked as I would anything untoward, I wasn't having it. I spoke to my attacker as a person telling him 'give me a break'. He was unnerved and eventually as some people came onto to the street, he let go. There is something to be said to refusing to be powerless. Men don't like confrontational women but are unwilling to acknowledge their part in it.
238
@barbara
There it is, you wrote the overall problem, "Men don't like confrontational women...". Pick a venue or circumstance: In the courtroom, on the job, at home, in the Senate, or in an argument. We're supposed to be compliant, keep our voices down, be supportive, nurturing and sweet, and allow the man to control the situation.
140
@barbara Yet another woman telling ‘men’ what they like and don’t like. Imagine the outcry if the opposite ever occured.
22
Do women like confrontational men? Why is this - and everything to some - made to be about gender? It’s not. Why do so many women like to play the victim (card)?
14
Power is simply capability. In any situation whatsoever, people of any gender are born with or can invent should be judged by one criterion only: Can he, she, or it DO the job? You can either lift the 300 lbs. or you can't. If you can, you're hired. If you can't, move on. End of discussion.
12
@Fred White So simple, right?
2
Right...but what if can lift the 300lbs but someone is standing behind you shouting in your ear that you can’t do it, and tickling you all the while. Can you lift the 300lbs then? That’s what sexism is.
20
@Emma Could you please elaborate!
I’m genuinely trying to understand, but I’m not able to follow this one.
Thank you.
I know so many intelligent, progressive, thoughtful women who do not feel oppressed, powerless, enraged at the patriarchy. Many do not even accept that we live in a patriarchy. Will they ever be given a voice? Or does the Times want this voice to be the accepted one? Why does every essay on gender necessarily come from the same vantage point?
86
I don’t see how any woman cannot feel the power of patriarchy when women can’t even have control of their own bodies.
18
@blumstone Huh? The Times Opinion section actually veers significantly towards the viewpoint of moderate older middle and upper class white women. (A bit of generalization of course, but thats the only group of NYT reading women who could possibly think themselves "progressive" while seriously arguing we don't live in a patriarchy.) Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, and Michelle Goldberg are all fairly moderate. None of them (with the exception of Goldberg and Collins sometimes) could possibly be described as consistently progressive. None are remotedly enraged. Bari Weiss would fit right in on Fox News. In fact, what the Times is MISSING are more voices like these -- younger women, women of color, progressive women.
3
@blumstone Maybe they're not enraged because they are so hypnotized by it's power they can't see it. I was amazed at my own blindness when I took my first gender studies class. We were presented with pictures of male and female bodies and asked to analyze them and until then I didn't even confront my own biases against women. It's hard to see outside a system you live in without the opportunity to do so. Just because they don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That logic is like a black person saying, i've never experienced racism, so therefore it doesn't exist for me. It sure does. We live in a racist society. We live in a patriarchal society. In addition, many white women benefit from the current structure in certain ways. Why would they see it?
5
Women are most often characterized as caregivers and those who need to be cared for. Who does this caring? Currently not the male gender model that has their own issues. When a woman is not a caregiver personality, she is characterized as an aggressive and angry nonfeminine person. Women who don't fulfil their "biological destiny" as mothers are devalued (ball-buster) as much as those who do who are penalized by losing professionally because they took time off to care for their families. Women are also valued by appearance (are you appealing for a man to look at?) rather than by professional ability. Women can also be the worst critics and devaluers of other women too which is a form of attempting to appeal to men because they seek to bring down an achieving woman. In short, 2019 is not a particularly good time to be a woman which for me, indicates that my very survival and thriving in these times as my power.
20
One of the biggest challenges to fair assertion of women's power comes in the form of other women who have been deeply indoctrinated in patriarchy-think (and speak). During the 2016 election, my Trivia group of educated seniors loathed Trump, but reserved a particular vitriol for Hillary. It was not that they opposed her on policy grounds. No, this group of women (the men present were silent) ripped the woman up and down for how she looked: "What's with those pants suits?" "Well, she has to wear them cause she has piano legs." "Those hair styles - what's with that?" "She's also got a fat [behind]" When I tried to call them on it, they looked at me like I had two heads.
It would be tempting to say that we are an older, less 'woke' generation (even though a significant wave of feminism belongs to our Boomer generation). Yet, criticism of a woman's appearance, tone of voice, assertiveness etc. is all too often heard even from younger women. Unless we can, indeed, find more solidarity among women, the future is not bright for changing the attitudes, behavior, and word so many men.
277
@Anne-Marie Hislop
I had a friend tell me they couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she didn't leave Bill Clinton after the cheating and stood by his side. She said it made her look weak because what kind of woman stays with a cheating husband?
12
@Anne-Marie Hislop - I don't think it's "patriarchy-think" (whatever that even means). I think that biologically and culturally, women are programmed to compete with other women to "get the guy". So a lot of it is subconscious and yes, we need to work on it. Men fight men with weapons and their bodies; women fight women with psychological torture. It's the premise behind "Mean Girls" and "Queen Bees".
26
@Anne-Marie Hislop I see this women working their patriarchy-think in my industry (construction) on a regular basis. The strong, successful women I see aren't so because they've pushed their own agendas but rather because they've conformed to male behavior. Every successful woman I know in the construction industry golfs, goes clay-pigeon shooting and works an absurd amount of hours to assimilate and compete with their male counterparts. It's so deflating to know that if you want to make it in my world you have to become another person.
12
For women to believe in their own physical power and strength is a good thing.
On a practical level, however, the lack of testosterone gives women only 60% of the strength of a man of similar size.
Women should realize this and not place themselves in potentially dangerous situations.
7
@steve Or we could have to right to expect men not to use this increased strength to harm us instead of saying we shouldn't "put" ourselves in these situations.
29
@steve women do realize this. Do you think woman don't have situational awareness?
Yet we want to live a full life too. I personally have not curtailed my global travel activities because of that reality.
Besides, even the most fit man can be taken down with instantly with a weapon. So men (maybe we should make that people) should realize this and not place themselves in potentially dangerous situations either.
7
@steve
"Women should realize this and not place themselves in potentially dangerous situations."
Ahh yes. Only a man would say this--this level of cluelessness can only be reached by a person who has never had to live under his own philosophy. The only way women can never "place themselves in potentially dangerous situations" is if they never leave the house or interact with men. Essentially, they either can't live their lives, or they must be in potentially dangerous situations.
Sounds like men are the ones who need to be locked up if they can't be trusted not to hurt people.
Heaven forbid we ask men to modify their behavior at all. Best just to place the burden on the group of people least able to prevent the bad behavior instead of actually pretending that men are intelligent creatures with agency, ethics, and morals.
10
Thirty three years ago
Challenger blew up carrying 2 female astronauts into space. To get that far their bodies were put though rigorous physical
testing. NASA has had plenty of time to observe that women are built differently then men.
All the spacesuits in the NASA closet were designed for men in 1978. Aside from NASA’s well documented disregard for women, the suits are another example of America’s outdated and crumbling NOT-world’s-best-practice transport network.
12
When the Challenger blew up, it killed one female astronaut, one female civilian, and five male astronauts. The spacesuits had no ability to prevent the deaths, nor did all the training these people received. Not sure what the Challenger disaster has to do with the issues in the article.
3
The mere fact this article was even written is evidence women woefully lack power. Why do we whine when we just need to vote.
8
It is always interesting to read about somebody having their own Wizard of Oz moment where they realize the thing(s) they sought were right there all along. I will clarify one thing, misogyny is not all around is anymore than misandry is and this hatred is by a tiny minority of people. If you feel there is hatred of women/men all around you then you need to look at yourself and the circle of people around you. Also realize the stories in the media are the exceptions not the rule.
In 2016 I was navigating a PhD in an environment that was highly discriminatory. Had I not had 30 years of experience in science, engineering, and IT I might have concluded that science/engineering hates everyone; it doesn't. Hateful people exist everywhere, but they are a tiny minority. We need to stop outsizing the problem and projecting our own hate on to others who have not wronged us.
21
Comparative victimology is becoming a bit dull. The world is a nasty, brutish place that punishes, men, women, children, the weak and sometimes the strong. We all die; we all mourn; we can all claim victimhood at some level. How can you compare the suffering of a rich, wealthy, white western woman with a poor black or white man who is homeless? Does the male-ness override the suffering, so it doesn't rate?
Victims are victims most often because they believe they are victims. The prophesy is fulfilled. The world is full of good and bad, a life of joy and hardship, but that IS what life is.
54
What the author calls “righteous” anger is rarely righteous and usually destructive. The very fact that it is labeled righteous is the best evidence it is otherwise. And another I am woman, hear me roar” essay has little value today, except for the most insecure. Medical schools and veterinary medicine schools are filled with women, vet schools overwhelmingly so. The opportunity is absolutely there—it is the interest—say in engineering, that often is not. And pitting men, who are out there this day almost exclusively working through the night in terrible weather to keep our heat and electricity on, is wrong. Women too are imperfect—as anyone who has managed them in an employment setting knows.
25
Substitute 'wiles' for 'weakness' and you're more on track.
1
I reread this essay a few times to understand it as the word ‘power’ is such a loaded word for me . I liked the ending about supporting and encouraging others -that felt wonderfully inclusive.
And I like the phrase “righteous anger” but know that as a retired person with free time , besides encouraging and supporting others, I still can only do so much. I can vote, contribute money and time, encourage , write letters to the editor and work in groups or for politicians like my Democratic senator and for local legislators and city council people.
For me, I have to be careful that my anger does not turn into self righteousness . That is me. Temperatures in my town have been in the 30s at time this past week and I look at my pansies outside. They are quietly thriving. I wonder why people use the word pansy to describe a weakling.
It takes different kinds of people to work for human rights. Some are able to use political or financial power to do so. Others , like my pansies, have quieter sources of power.
75
WOW eveyrone should read Anne in Montana's reply above
9
A few very small groups of almost entirely white males just told the entire female populations of several US states what medical procedures they can and cannot undergo even when their lives may be in danger. And yet commenters are already here saying that power "is there for the taking" for everyone if they want it. Sure it is.
432
@Myoshin
Thank you for this...well put.
36
@Myoshin Can those men be voted out of office and the laws changed? Did women vote for those men because they agree with their agenda? Was the election system rigged because of gerrymandering? Though we live in a plutocracy, true grass roots movements do have power.
12
@Myoshin. I disagree with their position, yet they were elected with the votes of men and women. That's democracy for you.
14
No one talks about the pain women inflict on each other. As the supply for men diminishes after the age of 29, many women realize 2 things: age means a loss of currency and other women are your competition. So let's have a frank conversation about that.
38
@anonymouse Who's "no one"? Just one example: Rosalind Wiseman, "Queen Bees and Wannabes."
7
There have been articles for decades on how women present differently than men for heart attacks. There is a huge focus among healthcare providers on not dismissing women's pain. Not whispers. Articles for both healthcare providers and the public.
This is a confusing, self-contradictory piece.
70
Sarah Mackintosh's proof that women are strong is that they live in a world "rife with misogyny."
This article comes across as someone who is trying to prove to herself that she is strong, whereas the women my wife and I know assume they are strong because they get up every morning and deal with the inherent brutality of life, just as men do.
149
@Dan It's true that women deal with the same brutality "just as men do" - and then on top of that, women get an extra shot dealing with the implicit misogyny that men don't have to think about. It's like competing in the same 5K except that women have just finished their own 5K before joining men at the starting line.
32
@Dan
What Julie said. Plus, her name is *Sophie* Mackintosh.
15
@Alia James oh, he doesn't have to get it right. It's only a woman.
7
"NASA’s plans for its first all-female spacewalk fell through because of a lack of suits in the right size."
This rapidly developed urban myth is absolutely untrue - NASA had multiple suits in the right size - suits have to be prepped for the space-walk and none of the correct sized suits had been prepped.
This 'woe is me' ethos based on patently false foundations [see the ol' thoroughly discredited salary gap myth] is getting old.
82
None of the suits of right sizes has been prepped for space walk.
... So that’s kinda like there’s no suits that are prepped for spacewalk in the right sizes available for female astronauts right?
28
Truly spoken like a man.
14
@SteveRR
Steve, if the suits were available but had not been prepped, I'm unclear how this does not support her point.
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You had me until you started shaming feminists that care about the role of biology in women's oppression. Whether we like it or not, our assumed ability to bear children has been central to our historical and ongoing treatment as second class citizens. Those in power have a vested interest in controlling reproduction and female sexuality (just look at this wave of anti-choice legislation!), and that will always be an axis of oppression for female people unless we take great measures to ensure legal protection. Framing it as though it's only done as a way to discriminate against trans people is unnecessarily divisive and just not true.
Until the female body stops being a target for violence, biology will continue to have an important role in feminism. To say otherwise is to deny the everyday horrors of women that are subjected to FGM, breast ironing, forced pregnancy, child marriage, etc. - ALL of which are feminist issues and ALL of which are rooted in the victim's sex (no one is asking these women and girls for their preferred pronouns before deciding their fate).
But perhaps this author only cares about the plight of people in wealthy, western nations where gender is seen as "fun" and "experimental" instead of a cruel system used to maintain the status quo of oppression.
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People are so much more interesting, happy and fulfilled when they live their lives free of oppression. Misogyny results in just one form of oppression. Add to that all our specie's other biases and prejudices and ultimately achieving human equality seems an insurmountable goal. Nevertheless, we must keep trying as though our freedom depends on it!
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@DrJackDarwin - well, yes, except you miss an important point: misogyny transcends and exists beside (or in addition to) all other forms of oppression, and in virtually every culture I have studied. It also manifests in multiple forms of oppression--not just one, as you suggest: economic, political, physical, emotional, to name a few. In order to achieve an egalitarian society, we must acknowledge that misogyny is distinctive in its manifold impact and its universality.
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I will never forget the Kavanaugh hearings as a horrifying example of angry male entitlement, and of the total disregard for female honor and expertise. And that he is now in power to decide what I can do with my body is just beyond devastating. A cruel realization of where we are in this country today.
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@sue denim A lot of people also remember those hearings with horror at the force of accusations without evidence and disregard of due process.
Horrifying all around I guess.
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@keith “Due Process”? The man was applying for a job. He was required to go through a hearing as part of the job search. That was his due process. It was the same process observed for each and every Supreme Court candidate ever. He had a team of lawyers. He had PR people. He had friendly senators. “”Without Evidence””? A woman’s testimony under penalty of perjury is evidence. There was plenty of evidence against him, and the dude had plenty of support in the process The fact that he was so weak under pressure only added to the reasons that I consider him unqualified for the job.
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@keith There are zero rights to“due process” when applying for a job. That’s what the hearings were for, applying for a job. The applicant lays out their qualifications and then meets in person to see if the person will actually “fit” into the organization. As an HR Manager, I used to be a member of team that interviewed the person(s) who had applied.
Stop spreading the Republican “talking points”. Nobody has a right to a job if they aren’t qualified.
The Senate was having a “job interview”. Not everyone gets the job just because they had a job interview, the same with the Senate hearings.
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Rather self-indulgent. For a great example of female power, I preferred today’s article on the woman climbing mountains with stage 4 lung cancer. Maybe don’t overthink so much and just do it, as Nike would say.
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@C Unless you're a woman athlete and get pregnant, in which case Nike doesn't say "just do it", they don't say anything and stop returning your calls.
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"Men present with heart attacks differently from women, and so their cardiac events are often missed." Perhaps if the author had been less self-absorbed, she might have explored the frightening implications of this fact. Human suffering is universal, whether the sufferer be female or male.
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Nice red herring. The article was explicitly not about ‘human’ suffering but a woman’s experiences and reflections on power and embodiment. Listen. Be charitable. Then speak. I thank the author for her thoughtful and thought inspiring piece.
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@Sandalwood Microvascular disease is more prevalent in women and less detectable: the stress test and sonogram typically used to diagnose some blockages doesn't detect blockages or narrowing in the tiny vessels at the edge of the circulatory system. Women's cardiac events are often diagnosed as panic attacks. Is that what you meant by "explored?" I have hread doctors suggest that when women believe they are having a cardiac event, that when they get to the ER, they report the symptoms normally found in males - even if they are not having them. Human suffering is universal but being believed is often in doubt if the patient is a woman.
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It wasn't so long ago that I scoffed at the idea that Bruce Jenner could honestly claim femaleness simply because he had a medical team give him the appearance of a female. I apologize for that Caitlyn Jenner. I had erred.
At the time, I was thinking, 'if one never had a period, one was not a female'. That's even though I have long realized that homosexual male and females had long realized their status from about 4-5 years old. Since Caitlyn Jenner I have achieved an understanding because I listened and studied valid research on the subject. To discriminate based on gender alignment is not any different than discrimination based on skin color, nationality, or age. Which brings me to the fact that patriarchy must end and we must replace it with Equality by the recognition of Universal Human Rights. Finally, guess what? It will not change who you are and your fears will not disappear until you decide to reevaluate yourself and make the changes necessary to become fearless. It won't change ugly and bad things that might happen, but it will probably change your evaluation of how to handle yourself so that those threats happen much less frequently.
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Me thinks the lady doth protest a bit too much.
Projecting ones own insecurities onto society is a cop out and reflects on the individual more than anyone else. Anyone can choose to be powerful or powerless. Don't make it someone else's choice.
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@Bill Projecting one's own power onto others is also a cop out and reflects on the individual more than anyone else. And you are absolutely projecting your power onto others, presuming they have the same choices and options.
They don't.
And by failing to see the limits on someone else's choices and options, you foster and reinforce those limits.
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@Bill Explain to me how I can choose to have some guy who weighs 100 lbs more than I do not sexually assault me? How do I get freedom of autonomy over my own body in states like Alabama when an almost entirely male legislature determines that I have no power to do so? I don't know if you know this or not, but there are real dangers to being a woman simply because we ARE women in a society that devalues women and pretty much everything deemed "feminine", and the dangers don't go away because some dude says "they're all in your pretty little head. Just man up and exercise your power, sweetheart."
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Said the man...
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"Feminine Weakness" feels a lot like a straw man here so a writer has something against which to rail. Power is there to be taken. I don't see it as being kept from me because I'm a woman. The thought has never crossed my mind.
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@AACNY
I can only conclude that you have thus far lived a very fortunate and sheltered life. If you haven’t yet encountered misogyny that limited you and your power, you will.
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@AACNY - "It's never happened to me, therefore it never happens to anyone." I know that's not what you meant to say, but that's how your message comes across.
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@AACNY. I remember feeling that power, using that power. It was back in the day before a bunch of male doctors pooh-poohed the pain of my debilitating cluster headaches, telling me to “quit worrying my pretty little head and those silly ole things will go away.” Back before some leering man blocked my way out of a deserted room with his superior size and strength. Back before my boss suggested during my performance review that we go to a hotel for the afternoon. Back before I experienced having my ideas ignored until some objectively less capable man espoused them as his. Back before a bunch of men—with what at least sounds like the combined intellect and sensitivity of a half a box of rocks—passed laws elevating the rights of nonviable embryos over those of living, breathing, sentient women.
Use your power while it still feels inviolable. The rest of us who once felt that way ourselves will pray that you can still feel that powerful at the end of the day.
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When we still lived in the city (Boston), my husband and I used to argue over my going out to take writing classes at night, which meant I had to take public transportation home afterward. He loved me, worried about me, and worried something terrible would happen.
I told him that the most terrible thing was giving into fear and failing to fully live. I took night classes and took the T home by myself after while he stayed home with our children and fretted. Meanwhile he, a jazz musician, was able to gig at all sorts of places until the wee hours of the morning without question.
Even the urge to protect, no matter how loving, limits women's freedom. Better to live a curious and active life with some risk in it than a quiet, protected life in a gilded cage.
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The sober appreciation of danger is not oppression when it is founded in fact. Indifference to real risk rewards itself with accidental injury or worse.
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@Rebecca - and I do think that males highly overestimate how much they can protect females - they won't stand a chance against a weapon being discharged towards them. And the odds high that an attacker is going to be armed.
Once you leave your house (well in most cases but for some women the most dangerous place is in the home), there is no such state as guaranteed safety - even if you travel with a companion.
I traveled all over the world solo (to include the T In Boston) and fortunately have never had a problem regarding personal safety. Not saying that it cannot happen, but we all have to choose whether we want an active life with inherent risk or the opposite - to be confined.
I choose freedom to roam responsibly.
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@Cazanoma, I noted that at the same time, my husband was a working jazz musician. Who had greater risk -- he, driving home after a night playing music in a bar, or me, taking the T home at 10:00 at night?
Yet I was the one supposed to limit my activities due to that risk; I was the one asked to give up the personal right to pursue activities of interest -- to fully live my life.
The sober appreciation of danger is, I'd suggest, based on the malice toward women men see in themselves and those around them with the response being to limit women, not control themselves.
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Thank you Sophie Mackintosh for distilling so eloquently the personal and historical role of power and women's bodies. Your words arc misogyny as life is lived as female. This article resonates, as no other this past week, for what what must be remembered, when legislators singularly subjugate our daughters' lives as nothing.
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Beautifully written. Such powerful awareness. I am 68 years old and see my experience in your writing.
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