..Women are subordinate to Man...

Forms of Male Domination and Female Subordination
Men in Feminism
• Higher Education
• Political Involvement
• Social Status
• Economic Sphere
• Sources
Fear; that is driving force behind many of the ills patriarchal society has placed upon women. Fear of women thinking on their own, growing strong in government, transforming the home, and being financially independent has made men throughout history cower to the women's movement. However, there are those few brave men who have stepped out of line with their fearful comrades to voice what was right, giving women their due. Those few supporters have transformed contemporary male thought to yield to women's efforts for higher education, social responsibility, political freedom, and economic independence.
It is important to view the male perspectives of women because feminism often gets a bad rap for "male-bashing", when in fact, throughout the movements history, many of the biggest allies have been pro-feminist men. It is imperative that society understands the dogmas men have placed on the female sex and the rhetorical reasoning that some men used to help break women from that dogmatic bondage.
EDUCATION
Education was a major battleground for women to start their war. During the Victorian times, women began to assert their claim to higher education or any formal education at all. The main male concerns with allowing women to receive an education were that they thought learning would physically deform women, make their brains develop large while weakening their wombs, destroy their figure and complexion, and finally co-education would sexually stimulate the male students, in return, distracting them from their studies (Kimmel, 102).
Pro-feminist men countered these unfounded fears by arguing that education was the right of every woman. There were men like Matthew Vassar and Frederick Barnard who petitioned for women to receive higher education. They opened schools like Vassar, Barnard and Woman's College at Wesleyan to instruct young women. Barnard pointed out in his article that men were afraid to step outside of the box created by their fathers because "we have not the courage nor the independence to venture on a measure unsanctioned by their example or unapproved by their presumed wisdom" (Kimmel, 115). They thought educated women would make better mothers because they would be able to guide and teach their children in a more effective matter. These women would also add to social growth. With half the population denied a formal education, they wanted to point out all the lost opportunity of knowledge that could be cultivated from their unexploited minds. Their main line of argument with the anti-feminist qualms was that there was no sound academic or scientific research showing that women were physically less intelligent than. Victorian pro-feminist men maintained that in order for women to become equal, they must have opportunity for education.
The contemporary pro-feminist man is focusing more on male education nowadays. They hope to educate more and more men on the struggles of the female sex. They are also working in conjunction with women to incorporate more women's history into the curriculums of children's education. Men's studies is another big focus of the contemporary pro-feminist. In a 1990 article by Harry Brod, he claims that by using the tools learned in the feminist movement, a men's studies department would "expose and demystify the culture of male dominance from the inside out,... offering both women and subordinate men the empowerment such knowledge brings" (Kimmel, 396). They are hoping to educate everyone on the stereotypes of men and show man in a category of his own, with his own disadvantages and unfounded expectations.
POLITICAL
In Victorian times, the struggle between women's suffrage and abolition was tightly bound. Pro-feminist men and abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were strong supporters of the women's movement. Douglass wrote "The Rights of Women" in 1848 and talked adamantly in favor of women's right to political freedom. After he attended the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, he was a changed man. He said, "a discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with more complacency by many that are called wise and the good of our land, than would a discussion of the rights of women"(Kimmel, 211). He used sarcasm like many pro-feminist rhetorical writers of the time when dealing with the silly assumptions that men made about women's status.
Anti-feminist men maintained women were too pure to be thrown into the grimy game of politics. Once again, they were thought too feeble-minded and weak to handle the troubles of political involvement. George Francis Train and many other men however thought that women's purity could be the saving grace of politics. He said, "I am asked, would you drag women into the mire of politics? No sir. I would have them lift us out of it" (Kimmel, 203). Others argued voting would "unsex" women and make them more masculine. This was again countered by a popular poem of the time which declared that if women could work in factories, mines, and labor duteously in the home, and had not yet become "unsexed", why would the vote all of a sudden make her manly.
In contemporary times, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been in contentious debate since the 1923. Many lawmakers and lobbyists on both sides of the feminist fight have been battling it out in Congress. A California congressman, Don Edwards, had introduced the bill every year to the House. In 1989, he argued "women are entitled to their birthright to full rights of citizenship" and that the same old excuses of political equality "destroying women, the family and our country" no longer, and never, stood up (Kimmel, 432). Other men's organizations supporting women's political position have popped up. There is the Men Allied Nationally for the Equal Rights Amendment, the California Anti-Sexist Men's Political Caucus, and the National Organization for Men Against Sexism. Each of these groups tries to educate the public on women's conditions and what men can do by placing ads, holding marches, and demonstrating on behalf of the ERA.
SOCIAL
Women's social status throughout history was entirely attributed to the fear residing in the hearts of men. It was their fear that kept women in the home, under their father and husbands control, with no sexuality of their own. In The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558), John Knox vilifies the position of women in society. He contorted The Bible's idea of marriage to claim women were subordinate to men in all realms of life. This thinking would continue into the Victorian times, and to some men still rings true. Jean Jacques Rousseau also belittles women in Sophy, or Woman. He says women "are not content to be pretty, they must be admired...It is not enough that a wife should be faithful; her husband, along with this friends and neighbors, must believe in her fidelity...she should have the witness not only of a good conscience, but a good reputation" (Bosmajian, 50-51).
Both Rousseau and Knox helped to feed the social inequalities that would plague women. The majority of society in Victorian times and many anti-feminists contended women's place was in the home as wife and mother. Women were to be seen and not heard. Pro-feminist men wanted more liberalized divorce laws, more equality in the home, and more birth control. Some promoted women's celibacy by arguing that without sex, men held no real power over women, and all defined sex roles could be obliterated. The other side of the spectrum claimed sexual freedom was the way to go because according to American Fourierist Albert Brisbane women would have the power and privilege to change partners if they became unsatisfied with their husbands (Kimmel, 284-85).
After he was arrested for helping his wife distribute birth control information, William Sanger was arrested in 1915. At his trial, he gave a statement defending women's right to birth control. He attributed thousands of preventable deaths to a lack of birth control information and called that "obscene and indecent", the charge he was being arraigned for (Kimmel, 351). But, marriage and family were just the tip of the iceberg concerning women's social inequalities. Marriage and sexuality became the biggest issues to tackle for the nineteenth-century pro-feminist man.
In contemporary times, pro-feminist men are focusing on women's right to control their own bodies and sexuality. They are forming organizations to combat against male violence and rape towards women. Many are also trying to make sweeping reforms in the home, with men taking more responsibility for the children and housework. They are trying to change the negative connotation that a stay-at-home dad receives, and society is becoming more accepting of this. All in all, contemporary pro-feminist men are trying to publicize the changing relationships between men in women in the last fifty years.
ECONOMIC
The economic sector was and still is one of the hardest spheres of society for women to break into. In a letter to his father, Robert Dale Owen claimed the anti-feminist man of the Victorian period thought that a working woman would "uproot the foundations of society, destroy the harmony of the domestic circle, invade the sanctity of the marriage relation, and a great deal more of the same nonsense" (Kimmel, 149). Women workers were thought of as stealing jobs away from capable men for lower wages, spending their earnings on "their frivolous consumerist appetites", and committing "race suicide". Even President Theodore Roosevelt thought a working women would aid in the decline of the Anglo-American race because immigrants were breeding at a higher rate (Kimmel, 153-55).
Pro-feminist men countered all these arguments well. They argued that men's inability to bring home a substantial wage was forcing these women to enter the workforce. They also abhorred the idea that women were doing the same work as their male co-workers for a significantly lower wage. In William Bowditch's article, How Long Shall We Rob and Enslave Women?, he argues that men and the government are stealing millions of dollars away from women by not paying them their fair share (Kimmel, 161). Others contended that equality at birth entitled women to equal wages. The battle waged on and still goes today.
In today's booming economic times, women are still earning seventy-eight cents to every man's dollar. Modern pro-feminist men are aiding in today's movement for pay and labor equity. They back women's right to "enter professions previously closed to them, to enjoy the protection of affirmative action and to enjoy union participation and leadership" (Kimmel, 369). In a speech to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, George Meany supported the ERA and one equal pay by saying, "If supporting a living wage for all workers makes me a feminist, move over sisters; I've been called a lot worse."
Throughout the last two centuries, men have been women's largest barricades to progress, but they have also aided the feminist movement in a magnificent way. Educational, political, social and economic reforms in women's favor have made milestone movements, but men and women are realizing that they still have a not won the feminist war. Until the underlying fear men hold towards women is dissolved, pro-feminist men must continue to fight alongside their sisters, wives, mothers and daughters to create a world were all are equal.
SOURCES
Bosmajian, Hamida and Haig. The Great Argument: The Rights of Women. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1972.
Jardine, Alice and Smith, Paul. Men In Feminism. New York: Methuen, 1987.
Kimmel, Michael and Mosmiller, Thomas. Against the Tide: Pro-feminist Men in the United States, 1776-1990. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Knox, John. The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous egiment of Women. Amsterdam: Da Capo Press Inc., 1972.
This page was written by Nikita Pavoggi, and is maintained by Melanie Ulrich.
This page was last updated Saturday, 18-May-2002 08:28:11 CDT


"The Mandate of Heaven elects certain men (not women) to be rulers of the tribes."

The Bible
Genesis 3:16 "Your husband shall be your master."
I Corinthians 11:3 "The head of woman is man."
11:10 "Women are under man's authority."
14:34 "Women are subordinate to men."
14:35-36 "Wives must submit and obey."
Ephesians 5:22-24 "Wives must submit and obey."
Deuteronomy 22:20-21 "If no proof of the girl's virginity can be found,
she shall be stoned to death."
1 Timothy 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
"Let women learn in silence, with subjection and humility.
Never let women teach men or have authority over men.
Women must be silent in church meetings.
This is because Adam came first, then Eve, and it was Eve who
was first deceived by Satan, and sin was the result."
Numbers 31:14-18, 32-46
"Moses was angry with the army commanders who let women live. Women are the cause of plagues and sin. Moses commanded that all women who had experienced sexual intercourse be killed, but the soldiers could keep the virgins 'for their own use.' When the war booty was counted, the virgin girls were treated like sheep, oxen and donkeys. The young women were counted and used like animals, as the Lord directed."

The Quran
2:228 "Men have a status above women."
4:34 "Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one
superior to the other. Good women are obedient."
--------------
Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815-1902 women's rights activist
"The whole tone of church teaching in regard to women is contemptuous and degrading.
Religions have opposed female freedom and taught inferiority and subjection;
these superstitions perpetuate bondage."
The male religious leaders realized they could eliminate half the leadership/power competition, if they could make this female degradation stick. Catholics, Mormons and Islamics have been very successful, for example.

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