One of the rocks that the debate on women's issues seems to founder on, over and over again, is the disparity of reward that seems to be available for men and women in the process of shifting from the current paradigm toward a more equal society.
It's easy to write about non-patriarchal societies that may have existed, but the truth is that none of us have the experience of a society that is not, by established custom, male dominated. Whatever we may wish to see in a future society, it will not be a case of "going back" to some previously described social hierarchy, it will be moving forward into a relatively unknown space where at least half of the current things we're sure we know about how men and women interact simply do not hold. Worse, I suspect we don't have much solid information about which half it's going to be.
We know, or at least we think we do, what the positive benefits for women will be: more equal status; better comparative pay; hopefully an end to victimizing and the associated fears that surround it; better educational and professional choices; a scrapping of the pedestals that limit the movement of many of us - the list goes on and on. It begins and ends, though, with an expectation that we can build a society where rape and general sexual exploitation, for the purposes of establishing and/or maintaining a power gradient, can become a thing of the past. But men? What do they receive in return for giving up the societal status and the associated perks that are a necessary part of the system? Well, there we're not so sure.
The great assumption is that a more equal society will relieve many of the social stresses on men that are part and parcel of needing to maintain the role differences that are built in to our society. And? Well, that's about it. And that it's the Right Thing to do. Hey, people, when you're starting from a defined low-status position, that's about all there is to offer - a general hope that the world will be a better place if we can figure out how to do this. Certainly a different place, with its own set of stresses and assumptions, and maybe a scarier place, because we'll be doing things we haven't tried before, but hopefully a better one.
And we know that isn't going to do the job, isn't going to offer enough of a reward to tempt the majority of men to give anything except possibly lip service to the job of actually changing the structures that hold our society in a pretty static mode. So, is there an answer? I think that there is one, and that we saw it playing out here a month ago. Follow me below the fold, if you care, or you dare.
A month ago, there was a powerful set of diaries, initially in response to the Rodger killing spree in Isla Vista. For a short listing of those diaries, check paragraphs 7 and 8 of this diary.
And all hell broke loose. What was being said, over and over, was:
Here is our pain, and yours.
Imagine walking in our shoes.
This is the downside of Patriarchy, and male privilege,
and we will no longer let you ignore it.
It brought out the trolls. Oh, my did it bring out the trolls. Tromping in thick and fast, both from outside the site and users who had lurked for years.
It brought out counter-diaries, and meta, and, in a tangent, instigated one of the more vicious pie fights the site has seen in a long while.
In short, it struck a nerve. And then things quieted down, more from exhaustion than anything else, imho. And in the weeks that followed, the discussion has been more about how to have the same discussion without the furor, than an actual discussion about what happened.
Because what happened was that men who had not consciously experienced that pain for themselves had it brought directly into their lives. For all that we complain that text does not convey emotion accurately, and use that to excuse a multitude of misreadings, these diaries worked on a gut level, on a level that needs to continue if there is to be any meaningful change in social structures.
Share our pain.
You've always known it, but couldn't acknowledge it.
If you wish it to stop, help us build a world
in which it isn't there to be shared.
This creates, or, in fact, exposes, the reward that's needed in order to get things moving. The pain is real, but many men (and yes, many women) have been blocking any conscious acknowledgement of it for years. Keeping it out in the open until solutions are found will take both courage and commitment.