On Manhood

...It is manly to work...

...but not for me, and not for increasing numbers of my fellow men...

...He is sometimes asked just what he does, exactly...

...But almost all men are in such a situation and can understand the humiliation of work, for almost all men hold down jobs out of necessity and not for fulfillment...

...you are a passing phantom who lives within this cubicle for a few months or years and then silently moves on his way, but the cubicle remains, and the company will not tolerate any imprint of your personality upon this place...

...It is time for men who want their own world changed to inject themselves into the women's liberation movement and to work, from within it, to change it into a movement aimed at liberating all of us: not just women's liberation, not just men's liberation, but human liberation...

...that others are dependent upon me...

...The message, however, is clear: Do not attempt to personalize your work area...

...Their families must follow them wherever they choose to go...

...My future, like my present and my past, is not under my control...

...They would be companions and comrades as well as lovers...

...I suppose I absorbed it all, for I did what was expected of me: I grew up and got a job, and now I support a family...

...On the other hand, suppose a man does work faithfully and well, does support his family, earn money, buy life insurance, and put his kids through college...

...My vaunted masculine freedom to choose my life's work and role has actually come only to this: a total lack of freedom, an inescapable obligation, a crushing social demand that I make the choice of career, make it early, stick to it, work hard, make a pile of money, buy lots of life insurance, put my kids through college, then retire and die...

...Even if there were such a movement, replete with cliche words like " b r o t h e r " to complement the feminists' usage of " s i s t e r , " it would not be enough...

...A man can and should free a woman from the house by assuming half of the housekeeping duties, and a woman can and should free a man from the drudgery and psychologically destructive burden of providing support for his family by taking on the responsibility of providing one-half of a couple's income...

...If liberation from sexual role-typing means, for a woman, a society in which she is permitted and encouraged to explore a career and a role for herself—freedom from the slavery of obligatory housewifery and motherhood—then for a man it means liberation from the slave-block where breadwinners are bought and sold...

...Life is hard, and it is made worth living only when we can share our lives and experiences with others—and this includes sharing the burdens and responsibilities...

...No drawings, no photographs, no weird symbols or posters that might, perhaps, have some special meaning to a particular individual...

...I must say, though, that all this hasn't made me feel that I am somebody—in fact, I feel more like nobody every day...

...But let us consider the situation of the man who decides to depart from the traditional role society assigns to those of his sex...

...Simply because of his sex...

...that is, he will offer a kind of passive support of the movement...

...Why is he so burdened...

...hence all physically able men work, unless they are in college (still an acceptable excuse...

...If men are sometimes repressed and warped by their roles, this is a mild and rare oppression compared to the grinding, constant dehumanization a woman must undergo...

...The company for which I work has a rule that its engineers are not allowed to decorate their office walls with anything that is not strictly work-related...

...that failure to do so will prove that I am not really a man...

...fortunately, the majority of women—and especially the more vocal feminists—are not in this position...

...Men, the symbol and embodiment of power, come to be seen as the enemy...

...that I am expected to do my duty to these others quietly and without hesitation...

...An equal sharing of burdens between men and women would be a healthy first step...

...Indeed, by its very existence, such a movement would imply that men's liberation is something different from women's liberation, that a man's enslavement is fundamentally different from a woman's, and it would lead to the supreme irony—a sex-based differentiation within the movement for liberation from sexual typing...

...I became what society defines a man to be because of the indisputable fact that I was born a boy...

...On another level, there is a definite form of action men can take...

...If we continue to offer the feminists only passive support, only tolerance and mute agreement, then their movement will never get beyond what it is...

...They would not lead separate, compartmentalized lives...

...The social pressures were too great, too ever-present...

...In this view, men can change jobs easily, and most do so with only their own professional advancement in mind...

...Their children would have two parents instead of just one...

...Certainly, tolerance is the least one can expect from any man possessing intelligence and a knowledge of life: to acknowledge the validity of the feminists' basic argument and to see women as our companions rather than our playmates...

...they are oppressed in the same way as women...

...Even our slang reflects this reality...

...practically speaking, I know I could not have...

...Harboring this fantasy of male power fulfilled, a woman need only contrast the realities of her own powerlessness, the many restrictions and petty indignities of her role, and inevitably bitterness and resentment follow...

...But even while granting all of this, feminists imply that the boy's troubles disappear when he grows to manhood...

...For the fact which no non-breadwinner can ever fully understand is just how degrading work can be when it is done not for fulfillment, but purely from necessity...

...Someone, she knows, holds the power...

...and society, by defining its idea of manliness and then making me feel guilty if I am not manly, tries to influence the way I spend the remaining half...

...For the half of my waking hours I spend at work, my activities are prescribed by others...

...During boyhood and adolescence, I was told repeatedly that when I grew up I would have the pleasures and joys of getting a job and raising a family—of making something of myself, of being somebody, both in my home and at work...

...REFLECTIONS On Manhood DAVID DVORKIN I was surprised when I first .realized that most feminists believe men really have it made...

...We are "wage slaves...

...He does not have opportunities...

...The burdens of life would be brought home, and that is where they belong, for home is where we live together, and sharing the burdens of life as well as its pleasures can enrich our lives...

...Far from being one of the masters in this society, I am a powerless cipher...

...As a man, I see a different reality...

...The boys, remember, will eventually be liberated merely by growing up...

...But if the root causes of our thralldom are the same as those underlying women's thralldom, then the political and social movement to change our status should be the same as the movement to change women's status...

...Certainly, lip service is paid to the idea that boys, just as much" as girls, are oppressed by social expectations during their upbringing...

...Oh, goes the feminist cry, what can compare to the power, the authority, the freedom, the social flexibility, and prestige enjoyed by the adult male...

...The efforts of the women's liberation movement as a whole in recent years, and the hard work and courage of individual women for more than a century, have significantly increased the options available to women...

...Most intelligent men have adopted a tolerant attitude toward the women's liberation movement, but that is not enough...

...Women who must work to support their children can understand it all too well—especially if, for example, their husbands have deserted them and they are the sole barrier between their children and disaster...

...In a certain sense, in fact, women are better off today than men...

...Where is all this power, authority, freedom, flexibility, and prestige I am supposed to enjoy...

...It will, no doubt, continue to do some good for some women, but in the end it will become sterile and fade away...

...The reason given for this rule is obscure...

...something to do with the appearance of the place in case of visitors, I guess...

...It is from the slavery, the degradation resulting from this role-assignment that all of us, men and women alike, need liberation...

...Does it fulfill him...

...Does that make him somebody...

...It is inconceivable that a man should not even want to work, and it is reprehensible if he is content to be supported by others...

...If he says he takes care of the house and kids, he encounters blank incomprehension...

...hence, if you are physically able, not a college student, and you do not work, you must not be a man...

...It has always been made clear to me that I have great obligations and terrible duties...

...They work because they know they are, indeed, all that stands between their families and a life not worth living...

...This seems to be beyond the feminists' comprehension...

...David Dvorkin works for an aerospace manufacturing plant in Denver, Colorado...

...He can, however, do much more, and in the process he can lay the foundations for his own liberation...

...While a woman is still supposed to think of herself primarily as a wife and mother, society certainly tolerates the idea that she might have career interests outside the home...

...Our oppression arises from society's ancient habit of assigning us our roles at birth on the basis of our sex, and the individual has no option to develop his own role during an entire lifespan...

...All professions are then open to him (if he is white), and if he has enough ability he can hope to make it to the top of his field...

...he has a man's duties, and they stifle and crush his spirit just as much as the drudgery women must undergo damages theirs...

...Imagine total snaring: a couple who both work part time, both take care of the house and children part time...

...There is no liberation movement for men, no social force to free us from our duties, to liberate us...

...Remember, fellow, the company says with lordly equanimity, that you are just a cog, a body...

...Does it enable him to die satisfied and serene...

...Theoretically, I suppose, I could have chosen another path...

...Society is still unhappy about women who choose a career in preference to marriage and motherhood, but the number of women who make such a choice increases nonetheless...

...This is the reality that underlies a man's "opportunit i e s " : they are really obligations, duties, social burdens imposed upon him from the moment of his birth until he dies...

...For some men, perhaps it does...

...If he chooses not to work—to be supported by someone else—people react with horror...

...we are "working stiffs...

...Boys must prove their manhood continually, must suppress any delicacy or sensitivity (read "girlishness...

...it is not she...

...Not only, then, are men oppressed in their own way...

...And if a man is tolerant, it presumably follows that he will not stand in the way of the feminist movement achieving its goals...

...But by joining it, and then expanding it to meet our needs as well as the needs of women, we can set in motion the forces that will someday build a better world, a world in which all men and all women are comrades, a society of equality and sharing, of brotherhood in the most general sense...

...Thus the feminist movement feels quite justified in setting a higher priority on liberating women of all ages than on helping boys avoid the perils of Little League baseball...