Law & Policy Book Review: "The Myth of Male Power" by Dr. Warren Farrell

In this episode, I review Dr. Warren Farrell's "The Myth of Male Power"

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 0:06

The myth of male power is one of the most important books that I've ever read. And I'm so glad that its author is someone like Dr. Warren Farrell. The reason I say this is because I feel like Dr. Farrell has a lot of street cred, so to speak. When it comes to dealing with gender issues, he was at one time, a very prominent feminist. He rubbed elbows with the likes of Gloria Steinem and Betty for Dan, he was, I believe, head of the New York chapter of the national organization for women. He would do seminars on gender issues and, and women's liberation. So when it came to advancing the interests of women, he had pretty impeccable credentials. What happened with the Dr. Farrell? Because he's an open-minded guy. And because he's the kind of guy who lets the evidence take him where it will, he started to take a second look at the men's side of the picture and came to the conclusion that things weren't quite so rosy on the men's side of things, as some would have us believe in that regard, he strayed ever so slightly from feminist orthodoxies. And because of that, he was no longer a prominent person in this movement. What he's done since is he's written books, he's given lectures and he's done so more so now dealing with men's issues in this book, he effectively demolishes this notion of male privilege and he makes the case that both in the present and in the past men have not had power or privilege over women. This is very hard for some people to accept because they don't really understand the past. And all they've ever really been taught in school or in popular culture is that in the past women had all these constraints, which by the way, he acknowledges, he acknowledges that there were burdens and roadblocks put in front of women. But the idea is that that women were kept down and they were kept down in order to benefit men. He makes a great case and he doesn't just do this in the book. I've I've heard him talk about this in interviews that he's given this idea that men made rules for women to benefit themselves. This is so contrary to reality. It's so contrary to reality now, and it's so contrary to what the reality was in decades and centuries past. And the reason people don't understand this is that they, they just haven't been thorough in really trying to understand history and really trying to understand, not just pointing out that for every obligation and burden and rule that was imposed on women, that there were also rules and obligations and customs that were imposed on men. It's it's, it's not just that, although he does get into that, it's also, it's a failure to understand, to the extent that there were what seemed like now unfair and pointless arbitrary rules that women had to follow and, and customs that were imposed upon them. What people fail to realize about. So many of those customs is that they were not born out of some nefarious male desire to control women. He makes the point in many places in this book that our customs, our laws, our morays, our way of dealing with a lot of life's challenges. A lot of this had its root in the, in the human struggle for survival. And because men and women were different, they, they both played a different role in that survival. And, and the role that men had to play was by no means glamorous. What we did with men was we socialize them to be sacrificial, to be disposable, to put the interest of women and children in the community first. And in pointing this out, Dr. Farrell is certainly not suggesting that women were privileged or that any of this was really even their fault. So much of this came about because of circumstances that neither men or women could control. The fact of the matter is women give us our babies. They are the guardians of human reproduction men. Well, we're a dime a dozen, right? You, you lose, you lose a few hundred thousand men in war. You've got plenty of other men to propagate the species. One example he gives that's really good. And it's such a good example because it's, it's a perfect illustration of how we misunderstand the past and how we look at it and see it as favoring men at the expense of women, he talks about polygamy. At one point, when people look back at these societies, like in the Bible with Abraham or other other societies, we call them quote, patriarchal societies. He makes a good argument here. There's no such thing as the patriarchy. It's again, all of our customs are a result of the human struggle for survival, but, but we look back, we look back at something like polygamy. And in our minds today, we see it as favoring men because we think, oh yeah, these rich dudes they'd, they'd have a lot of wives for themselves. And that meant they could have more babies. They could sexually, they could be involved with more women. In reality, in reality, what you had with polygamy was polygamy was a way of ensuring that more women had access to men who could produce goods and services who could take care of them who were capable. So that way you had more women who were able to have more access to rich men, to men who could help participate with them in ensuring the survival of the species and what happened with the rest of the memo. They were all just disposable, right? They serve some other interests, obviously not a glamorous interest, obviously not a very fulfilling interest. Now over time, that changed obviously because as, as civilization developed and as more men could figure out ways to get resources for women, then women tended to not favor polygamy so much. So, so in that sense, society, civilization was responsive to the needs of women. When it was beneficial to women to have a polygamous situation, we add polygamy. When that fell out of fashion, we, we, we changed to monogamy, but see, we look back and we think, ah, see this benefited men, when in reality, it really didn't. It was, it was society to treating men as disposable. It was society being concerned with its own survival, which is understandable. And in this respect, we had to make sure that we protected women and provided the most resources possible. There are so many other good examples too. I recall here recently when justice Ginsburg died, there was a lot of talk about the work she had done to ensure that married women could have easy access to credit cards without having to jump through various hurdles, including getting permission from their husbands. Well, again, the problem with that is that when we talk about an issue like that, we never talk about the men's side of the issue. We only talk about the burdens that were imposed on women. He points out in this book, and again, it's, you have limited time to deal with these things. I'd love someday to have more time to go into this more thoroughly, but, but any roadblock that we've ever had for women in so far as credit was concerned, you have to understand that there's a long history of men being punished for debts incurred by their wives. Men could go to debtors prison for four debts incurred by their wives. Men could go to prison for certain crimes committed by their wives. I pointed out in my podcast on men and sexual misconduct that men could be criminally punished, even for consensual sexual relationships with women. A lot of our statutes were defined in such a way that only men could be guilty of certain crimes and only women could be victims of certain crimes. If you study this issue of access to credit, by the way, there are these hilarious advertisements that you'll see men would put out advertisements in the newspapers. Husbands would do this, where they would say to the local merchants, please, please, please, please do not extend my wife any further credit because if you do so, she is going to be the ruin of me and I'm going to end up in debtor's prison. But you never hear about that. You, you only hear you only hear about the fact that women couldn't get credit cards in the 1940s. And this was so unfair that there's never a full discussion of these issues. And one of the constant themes that I like about this book is that when Dr. Farrell talks about the fact that there were certainly inequities that women faced in terms of their opportunities, in terms of their legal rights, et cetera, you cannot talk about those inequities, unless you're also going to realize and accept and understand that for men, there were, there were unequal responsibilities, unequal burdens, and unequal obligations imposed on them. When it came to many of these issues, you've got to look at both sides of these. If you're going to, if you're going to have a proper approach to these issues, I think it's also important to understand the role that women played in perpetuating and maintaining some of these customs. Again, we think of this as men imposing upon women, as opposed to both men and women being complicit in how society is, how society operates. I was thinking about this too, and he didn't get into this in the book. This is just something I'm adding to this discussion. But when, when you think about those who were resistant to change, one person that comes to my mind is someone who I actually admire quite a bit. I've always been a huge, huge fan of the late Phyllis Schlafly. It's so cool that you can go on YouTube and you can see you're having a discussion with William Buckley. You're debating one of these feminists. And I admire Phyllis Schlafly. I think she was fearless. I think she was, she was right in opposing the equal rights amendment. I think, where it's been imposed in certain state or adopted in certain states, it's been used for all kinds of foolish and questionable purposes. But to, to the extent that someone like Phyllis Schlafly, might've been maybe a little bit too extreme, or maybe she didn't have enough room in her worldview for women who were less traditional or, or women who maybe wanted to go beyond traditional gender roles, be a little more career oriented and career minded, to the extent that she was like that she, she, she wasn't like that because of men or because of the interests of men or because men impose their views on her. I mean, you've got to understand that so much of the way society is, is because women have an interest in keeping society the way it is. We, we, we see too many of these, too many of these debates, too many of these conflicts in societies, as men versus women. We, we talk about abortion that way. I've, I've done a podcast on abortion where I've pointed out that support for abortion and or opposition to abortion is about equal between the genders. You, you don't have more support for abortion among women than you do about among men and vice versa. So, so you get someone like Phyllis Schlafly and they have a lot of interests and concerns that they're trying to protect. That's why you've seen some resistance to change. I think when women started working more, when, when these roles that were traditionally held by men started to be open to women. I think to the extent that you saw people who resented that, or who resisted that change, I don't think they were doing that primarily to protect men or to protect men's interests. I, I think women like Phyllis Schalfly thought to themselves, oh my goodness, what's going to happen. If, if the men have to start competing with women for jobs, are men going to feel like they don't have to provide for women anymore? Are men going to feel like they don't have to be gentlemen anymore? Is my daughter going to get sent to combat or says know, remember this was Phil, a chef Schlafly and the fight over the equal rights amendment. This was right after Vietnam, right? So she's probably thinking, are they going to make my daughter register for the draft? Are they going to send her off to some place like Vietnam? Like they do the men. I mean, these are reasonable. These are reasonable concerns. Now, as it turns out, I don't think that's how things have panned out. I think what you have, and I'll talk about this in a minute. I think what you have is you have a situation where women have, have the best of both worlds. They, they have a lot of the same rights as men do, but they don't necessarily have the same obligations. And I don't say that I'm not suggesting that women are privileged. I hate word I, that that whole concept is divisive. And, and I don't think this is really the fault of women entirely either. This is a, this is a very complicated thing, but the point I'm trying to make is that where people fall on these issues, it's not always about promoting the interests of men. And I would argue in most cases, it's not, it's, it's more often than not. It's where the interests that it's the interest of women and children that we have at, at heart, and that's their concerns and their needs as always our first and foremost. And that's not necessarily a bad thing either. This could go off on a lot of rabbit trails here, but the point I'm trying to make is we don't, we, we didn't have this patriarchy in the past. And to the extent that society evolves and changes it a lot of times, it does based on the interests and needs of women, for those who are resistant to certain changes that some women would like a lot of times, those are about women's interests as well. I think a lot of women traditional women understand that they benefit a lot from traditional gender roles. And the more you undermine those roles, the less they benefit from that queen Victoria in England once said of the women's suffrage movement, that if women were to quote unsexed themselves, by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful. He then, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection. I've often heard people say that these rules and this prohibition on women voting was about keeping women in their place. Judging from that quote. I think certainly a lot of it was about keeping men in their place as well. How do we ensure that men will continue to make these sacrifices and be brave and to put the interests of women and children? First queen Victoria also said at one point that women's rights were quote, wicked folly, and that God created man and woman different and let each remain in their own position. Let women be what God intended a helpmate for man, but with totally different duties and vocations. Now I know some will say, well, she was just internalizing the patriarchy of her day, but I don't think so. I don't think so. Again, I think a lot of this comes, if you listen to these quotes that she made and the philosophy behind them, I think a lot of this comes from a fear of what would happen if men started trying to get away from their role. She understood that there was some way in which women benefited from these customs. Now over time, of course, that changed as people's interests changed, people's circumstances changed. So it's an interesting thing to think about. Another really interesting question to ask ourselves is when we think about this supposedly white male, patriarchy, and we shamefully and constantly just trash our past and our history, it was really, really sad to me, to be honest, we have such a negative view of our forefathers and our fore mothers, but I think we should ask what kind of world did we create here? When it comes to women, we really have created a very nice civilization. I think. So I mentioned before that women have the best of both worlds, I really think they do. And I, by the way, that doesn't bother me at all, I think that's, I think that's to our credit. I think that's something we should all be happy about when it comes to work, women can take it or leave it. They can be career women. They can be CEOs and presidents we've well, we haven't had a female president yet. We've had a female prime minister in England, one of the, one of the best Margaret Thatcher. But these days women can be CEO, doctor, lawyer. They can be stay at home. Mom. They can be not successful. A man's wellbeing is, is tied up very much in how successful he is with his career. Not so for women. I can honestly tell you in all my years, I've never heard one of my guy friends say, ah, you know, I'm not really interested in dating her. She doesn't have a good enough job. Just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Women can be stay at home moms if they want to, which by the way is great. It should certainly not be looked down upon or denigrated. They can be career women. They can, they can pursue whatever they find fulfilling and whatever leads them to happiness in life. Men. It's funny. There's a section in the book where he talks about the options women have as they contemplate their future. He said, men also have options. He says, men can work. They can work, or they can work. By the way, if we're going to talk about all the barriers that were put up in front of women in the past, when they tried to enter the workforce, I think it's only appropriate that we talk about the, the fact that women have the option to have careers now because of the accomplishments that men made in the past, he points out it was men that invented birth control. It was men that invented many time-saving conveniences. We all work in nice, comfy clean offices for the most part because of the inventions that men have made. So we've, we've built a world where, where women can go to a nice office, as I said, men can as well. And we have the men who went before us to thank for that. And in saying this, I'm certainly not being self-serving or suggesting that the men of my generation are owed anything. Obviously this was men who went before us and I'm not speaking now just of the men who made these great inventions, although we owe them a great grid of data to gratitude and admiration. But I'm thinking also of the men who were invisible, the men who did dirty jobs, the men who did unsafe jobs, men like my great grandfathers who were bricklayers and street, pavers, and die young. It was the men of those generations who made it possible. So we could have this environment now where most of us go to nice safe offices and women can thrive in these environments. Dr. Farrell points out that to this day, it's still men who are mostly represented in the death professions. I believe it's 90% plus of workplace deaths and workplace accidents are, are men. It's men who suffer those accidents. So we've created a nice world for women. We should be proud of that. Now, when we talk about this world that we've created for women, this, this, this world where they can advance in their careers and work in nice offices and everything else, I think it's also important to point out that there are a lot of other advantages that women have. Uh, Dr. Farrell spends a little time, dispelling the wage gap, myth he's person, number 4,000 that has done this. I, I still can't believe that people persist in pushing this wage gap myth that has been debunked over and over and over again. And he points out as so many others have that when you take into account, the fact that men choose more dangerous jobs, that men choose jobs that require more undesirable hours, that men are more likely to move for a job that, that men are more likely to major in the kind of degrees that will get them jobs that pay more. When you take all of those things into account, there really is no wage gap. There is an education gap. Women earn far more degrees than men do. Including advanced degrees. Women are more likely to go to college than men are. Men are more likely to commit suicide than women are men get longer prison sentences than women do for similar crimes. Men are more likely to be the victims of crime. Men die younger. As we mentioned, men die more on the job than women do men. Although there is no wage gap, they do tend to earn more, but in spite of that, women tend to end up with a higher net worth. And that shouldn't really be surprising. You consider that women live longer, which means they inherit their husband's wealth. Also women tend to do better in divorce court in terms of financial settlements, women are more often awarded custody of children. So there's a lot of ways in the present where, where women do better than men and all of these, this, this litany, I just rattled off there, there there's a lot of backing for that in terms of sources, Dr. Farrell documents, all these sources in his book, and there were others as well to back this up. These are all sources that I've checked independently of this, of the, of the, my reading of this book. And he, he is correct on, on all of these things. So needless to say, it's, it's, it's questionable at best to suggest that men are privileged over women or that they have more power in society than women do. Certainly not in the present. Well, what about the future? What should the future look like? And I think this is one of the few areas where I disagree with, with Dr. Farrell two big things, two big things. First of all, he's he's for this idea of a kind of gender transformation movement. He acknowledges that men and women are just inherently very different, but he's a big believer that we should try to socialize our children to where they don't feel the need to fit into these, these gender roles. And I understand what he's trying to say. And I appreciate what he's trying to say, but I think, I think this leads him into some areas where maybe his suggestions aren't so good first, he suggested that we try to, instead of socializing men, to be tough and to be sacrificial, that perhaps we should socialize men to be more sensitive, to be more feelings oriented. I don't like that. And again, I know what he's trying to do. I appreciate him. He's thoughtful. I don't think that it's unhealthy to push a little bit of stoicism on men to try to get them to control their feelings. I don't think we want to live in a world where men can't control their emotions and saying this. I know I'm going against what a lot of psychologists would say. And I'm also not trying to push this, this kind of tough guy attitude. I think we should certainly be tolerant. I think we should be kind to people who are more sensitive, but I don't think it's a bad thing that, that we socialize men to be tough, to control their feelings. Even a little bit of hazing amongst peers. Isn't such a bad thing. I know I enjoy with my guy, friends making jokes and kind of picking on each other a little bit. Obviously all of that can be taken to extremes. Obviously all of it can get out of hand. So I would slightly disagree with him on that. Again, he's thoughtful. I appreciate him. I appreciate his perspective. I also don't think one of his goals and one of the goals of the men's rights movement that is congruent with the goals of the feminist movement is they want more equality of outcome. They want to see more women in leadership roles. They want to see more women CEOs of big companies. They want to see more female breadwinners. It's not that I have a problem with any of that. Especially if that's what any particular woman wants to do. I'm a big individual rights and individual Liberty kind of guy. I just don't think we should be so enamored with, with equality of outcome. This, this, this, this tendency we have these these days to do this kind of headcount, where we need more men in this group and more women in this group. And more people have this as an ethnicity or race group. I just think that's a bad thing. I think people go in a lot of different directions for a lot of different reasons. I think people have different interests, different values, different, different levels of risk tolerance, different, uh, dedication to work, et cetera. I'm not a big fan of this whole equality of outcome thing. I, I don't care. I, I it's, to me, it doesn't matter how many CEOs are men or women. I want people to have the, the freedom to make their own choices and to be responsible, to live with the consequences of those choices. But I think Dr. Farrell is absolutely right when he does say that. If, if in fact we are going to push for more equality of outcome, and if we're going to achieve more equality of outcome, we have to deal with the unequal pressures and expectations that we put upon men in so far as being successful at work is concerned. And I mentioned this earlier that a man's wellbeing has his prospects for marriage has his prospects for, for, for, for a lot of good things in society hinge on how successful he is at his job. The messaging that men get these days is so very inconsistent. On the one hand, we say, step aside and let women lead. But on the other hand, we believe in brow beat men who aren't successful enough, they're there. I remember I shared, I shared this headline a few years ago. There was a headline in a paper that said, I believe it was the New York post that said broke. Men are hurting women's marriage prospects, right? So, so there's this one theme that says this one theme in society that says, men are immature. They're there. They're not responsible enough. They're not successful enough. They're not sophisticated enough. They're enamored with video games and sports. And they look at too much pornography and everything else. But then there's this other theme. This other theme that says men are too are too aggressive and they're too competitive. And this white male, patriarchy capitalist it's crowding out women and everything else. Well, that's look, that's an inconsistent message there. What, what do you want? The truth of the matter is too many people in this society want to have the best of both worlds. They want men who are responsible and productive, but they also want men to step aside. Well, you can't have both. If, if a man's wellbeing is going to be tied into how well he does it, his job, he's going to be very competitive. And he's going to be more competitive than, than women who maybe generally speaking, of course, obviously there's exceptions, but generally speaking, you're going to have men who are more competitive because they have more to lose. And the women don't have the same pressure. As I said, for women, for women work as a take it or leave it thing, it really is. They can maintain their respectability if they're successful at their job, or if they're not successful at their job. And I know when I say this too, I'm not being insensitive. And I know that there are going to be women, especially select single moms who say, Hey, buddy, for me, work is not an option I have to work. And I understand, and I would acknowledge that for such search certain situations like single motherhood, that there are more pressures, but I would say even their society is far more likely to, to come to the rescue of, of women who struggle financially than they are for men. And this is, this is why more men are homeless. Men who don't do well are don't really get far in this society. And that's why a lot of us too are skeptical when every now and then when you, you get a clever feminist who will try to say, see, see the patriarchy hurts you to, we, we don't want you to be stuck with these rigid gender roles. Well, well, men know that's BS. They, they, they know that society's always going to have those expectations of them. Society doesn't treat, stay at home dads very respectfully. They just don't. We, we can all see this. I've seen this with friends of mine. It just doesn't happen. You know, feminists will talk one way, but, but I I've seen this in divorce court as well. You get a man who can't produce and they know they can't come out and say certain things because they know that they're perpetuating what they perceive to be these traditional gender roles. But they'll say things like, well, the men aren't responsible enough and find some other reason why it's acceptable. The brow beat a man who, who can't produce. Well, look, that's a problem. And, and I think, again, I'm not a big fan of equality of outcome. And I, I, I don't resent gender roles because I think men and women really are different. And I don't want to live in a society where men don't feel like they have to be responsible and productive. But, but I will say, if you want more equality, if people do want more equality, they have to slack in a little bit or ease up on their expectations of men. You just simply can't have both it it's it's in congruent. It makes it makes no sense. So there were a few small things that did bother me about this book, and I hate to even bring it up because it's such a wonderful book. And Dr. Farrell is someone I have so much respect for. I mentioned a few things I didn't agree with him about, but that I at least appreciated his perspective on two other small things that kind of drive me crazy. And I don't think he was particularly thoughtful about these things. And again, I know they're small things I know they are, but for the life of me, I don't understand why people can't just leave the sport of football alone. He talks, he calls it smashed face. He calls a race car, you know, car rage driving. He calls it a car crashing. He has this very negative view of any kind of combat sports at one point, even equates football with, with child abuse, at least for junior high age boys. And I just, it's so frustrating to me. I just wish people would leave football alone. A lot of us love football. A lot of young men have, have, have developed skills and discipline and confidence playing ball. Sure. Look, I acknowledge it can be a rough sport. And I support any parent who tries to steer their kids in a different direction. That's their right to do. But, but for those of us who want to play ball, who want to watch it, please for heaven sakes, just leave football alone. You're you're not doing society some great favor. I mean, I could go on about this, but it's, it's just frustrating to me. I wish he hadn't gone down that road. One other thing that kind of irritated me too. He, he said that a lot of men grow up and develop resentment and unhappiness because we quote addict men, two beautiful women. And when these men get older and they realize they can achieve relationships with these kind of women that grow resentful and angry. Well, again, I, I disagree. I disagree with him here as well. I look you're on TV, on in movies and plays and, and, and even in books and advertisements, you're always going to have idealized images of beauty, right? And I'm sorry, I don't, none of us want to watch movies with at least for the most part, unless you're going for some kind of realism theme or something. Most of we watch movies and advertisements as an escape. We want to see beautiful people in these movies. I like to see beautiful ladies, right? I don't, this is so foolish this idea. If, if men grow up resentful because they can't have relationships with the kind of actresses they see on TV, who by the way are in wardrobe and makeup and everything else that, to me, that's silly. That's a personal discipline, personal, that's a, that's a personal issue. And I don't think society should feel bad about this, or start making movies with unattractive people. Just so men can feel better about this. This reminds me too, of, of, of, of the body image positivity movement, which I also can't stand, which I also think is just anti excellence. That's where they say girls develop eating disorders because they can't look like the models and actresses they see on TV again, very serious personal issue. Let's not blame society for this stuff. So I didn't agree with him. I didn't agree with him on that. Overall, this is a wonderful book. A man that I respect, I have enormous respect for him. He, he wrote a really great book. He's, he's done multiple versions of it, you know, for those who don't want to read this, there is a very, very good, easy to listen to format of this book. It's essentially like an interview format. He, he does the book as though he's answering questions. So it's about three and a half hours long, very easy to read, uh, excuse me, easy to listen. And he basically sits down. He's got another guy asking him questions. And the whole thing is him just asking questions and sharing this information. This book is on my highly recommend list. And again, that is the myth of male power by Dr. Warren Farrell.

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