New Feminisms and the Masculinity Crisis: Opinion
Today, too many in our society demonize the work of political actors who have drastically transformed the lives of almost half of the population for the better. Specific groups of men, mostly located in an online hub called the manosphere, who often self-identify as incels (involuntary celibates), and show neofascist, transphobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic tendencies, have established a culture of hate (both online and off-line) in which people, and more specifically women, are demonized because they believe and work towards the advancement of both gender equality (sameness in rights) and gender equity (fairness in means).
This culture of hate somehow leaks and resonates in the general population. As a result, Feminism with a capital F is demonized and becomes the “F” word. The gradual internalization of this culture of hate, and the somehow opaque (or forgotten) gains of the feminist struggle, impacts women too. Many women like me, who did not witness the hardships experienced by our predecessors in getting us many freedoms, often consider themselves outside and not a tributary of this movement. Therefore, many women would say, “I am not a feminist but…” or “I do not identify as a feminist but…” The disengagement between new generations and feminism as a sociopolitical movement seems discouraging — especially when we witness the gradual losses in the U.S. of women’s hard-fought-for rights: the right to reproductive care, to economic equality, to dignified treatment, etc.
Yet, by each act of demonization, a new head of the hydra emerges. New feminisms come to the fore surpassing the 20th Century movements that focused either on the politics of identity (necessary for both equality and equity) or on the crisis of capitalism (often overlooking the many colonialisms, imperialisms, or predatory globalizations). Today, these new feminists may not even call themselves as such, but they have a clear goal of placing women as parallels and allies of men and of all the gender spectrum, in the quest for shared, fair, and sustainable good living. Best examples of these new feminisms come mostly from what we call the Global South or the Non-Western world. These are indigenous women in Bolivia or in Mexico, ecofeminists, or decolonial thinkers. They advocate for a society that does not believe that men or women are above nature. These women are not only theorists but also designers, builders, and pillars of communities that seek to balance the human and the non-human. These feminists look both at the social and the biophysical worlds as common places that need to be preserved, cared for, redesigned, and inhabited with dignity, love, and responsibility.
As part of the radical ecological democracy movement in India, Vandana Shiva secures seeds for future generations, saving them from the grasp of Monsanto, a company that wants to patent and control future crops. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, indigenous women fought and won against giant multinational Nestlé, which wanted to privatize their rainwater. In Mexico, Mayan female beekeepers also won a lawsuit against Monsanto, this time by creating a coalition composed of Mayan farmers, NGOs, scientists, and international ecofeminists, in order to protect the health of the flowers, of their land, their culture, and more importantly, the health of the Melipona bees, from the toxic effects of glyphosates. In these new feminisms, women see beyond the immediate struggles that polarize our society and thread networks of solidarity and support among different social actors. They note that what is at stake is not a gender war, but the survival of our species and of the non-human species, of the living and of living.
Should we call their views both conservative and conservationist? Both traditional and radical? I would dare to do so, and consider these terms not antagonistic but rather connected. Historically, women have been a conservative force in society, in the many meanings of the word. I would argue that women are conservative because of the ethics of care they have historically displayed. These ethics of care seek preservation and human bonding to the detriment of competition and utter destruction — habits historically attributed to masculinity, and more specifically, to a branch of masculinity that we call today ‘toxic masculinity.’ In many ways, women’s conservative nature has also played a role in their rejecting change in society, in order to ‘conserve’ things as they are. This habit contributes profoundly to the strength of the status quo. By holding to tradition, women are thus important for the reproduction of our social and cultural capital and for social stability.
What the new feminisms are bringing to the table is the strength of being conservative, conservationist, traditional, and radical. Ecofeminists are conservationists in their radical approach to living because they go beyond protecting a status quo that is slowly but surely destroying our habitats, our daily lives, and our society’s future. These new feminists apply their ethics of care to both society and nature in order to create the conditions for “Buen Vivir” (“good living”) and “Ubuntu” (“the interconnectedness of both humanity and the world”). By preserving their ancestral cultures, honoring their knowledge, and sharing it with the world, these women show a new politics that is as clear and strong as it is loving and effective. In the ecofeminisms, the decolonial feminisms, the post-industrial and post-development feminisms, it is recognized that reality and society’s stability has only brought us gender inequality, war, destruction, pollution and the demise of the living.
I believe that in the agenda of these new feminisms (as in the past, albeit more subtly), men are deeply empowered, too. It is because of the many feminisms and their impacts on society, that other identities open spaces to come to the fore — especially in the LGBTQ rights movement. Furthermore, it was African American women who pointed out the shortcomings of (White) feminism and thus connected this movement to others, such as the civil rights movement, the ethnic struggles, the colonial and postcolonial struggles, etc. As many incels note, these networks of ‘insubordinates’ surely seek to threaten the violence embedded in the status quo. Moreover, men are in tune with this network and its principles, too.
Today, masculinities are stopping and reflecting too: they can continue the patterns dictated by hegemonic masculinities that submit both young and old men to unattainable standards and expectations, or they can redesign and embody new ways of being a man. Although women had a sexual and gender revolution in the 60s, men did not get the time and space to experience their own revolution. Therefore, what we call today a “masculinity crisis” as related to other connected ideas, such as “toxic masculinity,” is a misnomer. Men are not in crisis; rather, they are at the dawn of their own (long-awaited) sexual and gender revolution. Young boys and men are questioning what it means to be a boy and a man, and why they need to conform to these categories. Furthermore, men are embodying new masculinities: they are primary caregivers, they practice their vulnerability, and move beyond the tropes of ‘boys don’t cry,’ ‘locker room talk,’ ‘macho men,’ or ‘alpha dogs.’ Men know that they, too, have been oppressed by stereotypes that are ageist, hegemonic, white, capitalist, Judeo-Christian, and Greco-Latin. They are resisting their imposed design: be tough, detached, or dominant.
These new masculinities are counter-balanced, however, with many radicalisms and dangers. Many incels, hunkered in asocial tendencies, face psychological challenges that, unfortunately, are not cared for in the society we live in. As a result, a small but impactful number of radicalized young and not-so-young men are responding to the call of rage and, immersed in a gun-centered culture, end up destroying their lives and the lives of the people they encounter. As noted in a recent study about youth mental health, while women tend to suicide in the same situations, men are most prone to both suicide and homicide — and in a small percentage of cases, to consider mass shootings. For each one of them, however, new boys and men are questioning the society they live in, and playing a major role in designing a future that all, and not just a few, can inhabit.
Men’s revolution (or ‘crisis’ as they want to call it) will not succeed, however, without women. Only if all the genders talk, for example, as partners and equals, in the middle of the date, at the table, about who pays this time for dinner, about who initiates sex, about how they distribute chores, parental duties, and emotional loads, only then will both the new feminisms and the new masculinities succeed. In these conversations, a trespassing of the binary “men/women” is a given. Our society is beyond the binary and the heterosexual frameworks. Thus, we need to embrace both our testosterone and our estrogen (from an evolutionary biological perspective), both our drive and our care, and all our gender performances, and create networks made of alliances, built with reciprocity, in a place that is common and with an ethics of care.
Only care will save us. Being careless or carefree has meant our demise. Being too careful about meeting in the middle, making compromises, giving grace, and having uncomfortable conversations will only stall the possible. Only when being caregivers and caretakers will we preserve our common dignity, the dignity of the non-human, and guarantee a “Buen Vivir” or good living, available to and reachable by everyone and by everything.
Elena Deanda, Ph.D. (she, her/s, ella), is an associate professor of Spanish at Washington College, where she is also the director of the Black Studies Program. She is president of the Ibero-American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, MLA delegate of the 18th and 19th Spanish and Iberian Forum, and guest co-editor of the Journal of Gender and Sexuality Studies 48.2 (2022).
© Common Sense for the Eastern Shore, 2024
Title image: Pond at Pickering Creek Audubon Center, Talbot Co. Photo: Jan Plotczyk
