Tom Martin is becoming quite well know in the feminist and anti-feminist blogosphere. He has taken the unprecedented action of suing a Gender Studies department – the renowned LSE Gender Institute in London, UK – for discrimination against men. As Martin has said:
‘When “women’s studies” became “gender studies” departments, it signalled a new era of inclusion for men’s issues – a rejection of this now is a betrayal of men and equality.’
I have a PhD in gender studies, and my view is that no matter what the subject is called, it will always be based on feminist dogma, and on a misandrist view of the world. Again, as Martin has pointed out:
‘Patriarchy theory – the idea that men typically “dominate” women – is omnipresent, when research shows women tend to boss men interpersonally. Texts highlight misogyny but never misandry, its anti-male equivalent’.
It is in the light of this bias in gender studies that I came to read Mark Simpson’s 1994 classic Male Impersonators . And to examine how and why it has been omitted from the reading lists of gender studies courses, including modules on ‘masculinity’.
‘Marky Mark’ Wahlberg was famous for being a Calvin Klein model back in 1994
Feminism has done three things particularly in relation to masculinity that relate to how gender studies has come to ignore and belittle men’s experiences and perspectives. And these three things explain why books such as Male Impersonators are not on gender studies reading lists:
1) Whatabouttehwimmin?
Feminism has been based on the assumption that men are ‘catered for’ by society at large, and within academia, and so any treatment of gender has been focused on the disadvantages faced by women, and how women have been ‘omitted’ from research, arts, literature, history etc.
An example of this assumption can be found in another book published in 1994 –Angela McRobbie’s Postmodernism and Popular Culture. The book has many discussions of women, girls and ‘femininity’, but look for ‘masculinity’ in the index and you will draw a blank. She justifies this glaring omission with statements such as this one:
‘It is in buying and selling clothes that girls and young women have been most active. The male bias of subcultural analysis has relegated these activities to the margins…’
(McRobbie 1994:163). (my emphasis).
2) Men are Monsters
Feminism, when it has considered masculinity, has tended to treat it as ‘a problem’. Heterosexual masculinity in particular has been ‘pathologised’ by feminist gender academics, with heterosexual men being portrayed as the oppressors of everyone else: hetero women, queer women, queer men. In 1995, Raewyn Connell (Then Robert W Connell) published Masculinities, and this became the ‘bible’ of masculinity studies. Its core idea of ‘Hegemonic masculinity’ gave the ‘problem of heterosexual men’ a fancy name.
The idea that straight men have power that they use to oppress women in particular, has been used by feminist writers such as Elaine Rapping, an American media and film analyst, to justify statements such as this:
‘Everywhere you look there are books, movies, discussions and news reports about male violence… Faced with the deadly serious question: ‘why are men such creeps?’…’ (Rapping, 1993:114)
3) ‘Masculinity’ is Gay
The only aspect of masculinity that feminism has allowed to be considered without completely dismissing its value, has been ‘queer’ masculinities, and this has been left to ‘queer theory’ and considered an issue for gay men to worry about. Mark Simpson for example tends to be categorised as a ‘gay’ writer on ‘gay’ men’s issues, and when he is mentioned in books about masculinity, it is often in relation to his work on gay pornography. Feminist writers suggest there is a definite line between ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ men, and in doing so they are endorsing ‘gay’ men as somehow better than straight men, suggesting they deserve consideration as people, not just ‘oppressors’. But at the same time they are marginalising any positive representation of masculinity into the box of ‘queer theory’. In other words, feminism suggests that taking an active interest in men and masculinity is ‘gay’ in itself.
Mark Simpson’s Male Impersonators is an interesting case study then, because, far from actually ignoring it, feminist academics have in fact taken its ideas and effectively stolen them and manipulated them for their own, feminist ends. In doing so they have ‘erased’ Simpson himself, by deliberately failing to cite his work in their bibliographies.
A number of feminist academics have made it clear they must have read Male Impersonators, but have not acknowledged just how much his book has ‘inspired’ them, and in some cases have not mentioned Simpson at all.
The most well-known of these is probably Susan Faludi. Her book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, published in 2000, the year after Bordo’s The Male Body, certainly draws on the themes introduced by Simpson in Male Impersonators.
In particular, Faludi’s chapters on ‘hood ornaments’ – men’s newfound ‘decorative’ role in culture, and ‘waiting for wood’- men in pornography, seem to owe a great deal to Simpson’s Male Impersonators. Anecdotal evidence tells of an interview with Faludi, where Simpson’s name was brought up and she declared ‘Oh Mark Simpson. I’m his biggest fan!’ But not such a big fan that she could include his book in her huge bibliography.
Other academics who have obviously drawn on Male Impersonators with little or no reference to Simpson include Susan Bordo, whose The Male Body (1999) completely ripped off Simpson’s earlier book ( I explain how here ), Germaine Greer (2003), Ros Gill et al, (2005), Harris (2007) Eric Anderson et al (2009) and Hall (2010).
Though its lack of recognition saddens me, there is something about the fact that Male Impersonators is a ‘lost’ treasure that makes it so much more precious. Not only does it seem as radical now in its ideas as it was when it was written 17 years ago, but it also provides a clue to ‘how we got here’. The book is particularly precious to me because the thing that has been hidden from view and from our understanding, the thing it uncovers, is something I love dearly: men.
Male Impersonators gives us a clue to why David Beckham is now such an iconic man.
But Male Impersonators is back and it is as explosive and as dangerous as ever. Maybe they won’t be able to get the lid back on this time. I hope not, for all our sakes.
Metrosexy by Mark Simpson is out now on Amazon Kindle. Male Impersonators is being re-released soon in the same format.
Quiet Riot Girl is an anti-feminist blogger with a keen interest in men and masculinity. It is that interest in fact, which turned her into an anti-feminist.
