Men, Women and Sexism

Some time ago an interesting book came out called The Hite Report, purporting to be a survey of women's sexuality. Aside from the surveys that Hite conducted, there was a great deal of editorializing on the part of the author (ranging from statements that the male of the species had an almost hysterical fixation on penetration and ejaculation, to the fascinating comment that women who rejected lesbian sex were traitors to their sex), and some truly extraordinary statements about men--men as human beings, as beings capable of emotions and as sexual beings. These statements depicted men as cold, ruthless beings, profoundly concerned through most of their natural lives with the physical terrorization and sexual degradation of women.

It has since turned out that most, even all, of these statements on men were--lies? Or should we say mistakes? Indeed, two doctors, one male, the other female, were so depressed by the declarations of the Hite Report on men that they conducted a survey of their own, of men and their feelings and opinions, and found almost diametrically opposite results from those Hite found. They found that what most men looked for above all in a sexual relationship are companionship and love; they found that most men found foreplay the most important part of sex; and they published their findings in a book called Beyond the Male Myth.

It seems that one can come up with anything from a survey. While The Hite Report, however, was a national best-seller, found in all the bookstores across the nation, Beyond the Male Myth has been downwright hard to find. But the one book which seems to be all over, in every store window, is The Joy of Lesbian Sex. What sells, is sold.

The point seems to be this: What is about women is interesting, what is about men is dull (unless perhaps it portrays men brutally abusing women--e.g. Looking for Mr. Goodbar). The men's magazines are covered with pictures of women and the women's magazines are covered--with pictures of women. Women playwrights and authors, even of the past and often of dubious quality, are hoisted in the national spotlight. We are expected to listen to musicians who are women not because they are brilliant musicians, but because they are women. Women are complicated, men are easy. Women are important, men are trivial.

In many fields, it is two to three times as easy for a women to get a job as a man, and one finds that the thrust of this affirmative action is to call women into a field who are not really interested in it, but anticipate better chances for jobs and higher salaries for less work than their competition, being mostly male. Men are second-class citizens: to justify this on the basis that women used to be second-class citizens would be like suggesting that Christians today would be justified in feeding Italians to lions. There is a book out called Solo: Women on Woman, which indicates that the male body has become almost totally desexualized (except to get males); all the sexuality is in the female.

I think this is unfair. We are all humans. A woman cannot call another woman sister without calling me brother. Forgive me this sentimentality; I grew up in the '60s. I believe we are all brothers and sisters, and we are all responsible for one another to some degree. The rampant and brutal indifference shown by some women to the plight of miserable or sick men depresses me. (I recall one professional panhandler, a woman, who said: "I'll always give money to another woman. We're in this together. I wouldn't give money to a man if his clothes were falling off and he was starving to death.") So does the general attitude that it is perfectly all right for women to insult, attack or condemn men as viciously and as often as they please, but any man who says a word against women is to be condemned by all.

Men. Poor men. I can only speak from my experience, of course. I know there have been things, horrible things, which have never come near my protected life: brutal rape, wife-beating, job discrimination. Much of this has been corrected; still more will be taken care of if the E R A is passed, as I fervently hope. But we must have been emotionally raped; we are measured, above all, by our work; we are encouraged not to bond, neither to each other nor to women. We are desexualized, desensualized; neuter brains, success machines. We are not supposed to enjoy touch, but supposed to be pure, powerful, intellectual, super-human. The prototypical perfect male is Mr. Spock of Star Trek, possessed of deep dedication and dominated by love (but always higher love: love of beauty, love of knowledge, love of truth), raped of every normal animal feeling.

In my experience, and I speak only from my experience, women seem stronger and more stable, men more brilliant and devoted; then again, in my family, the women have always managed the financial affairs and directed the family, often holding the jobs, if anyone did. The men were very mild, very gentle sorts, quiet, often depressed, barely there, but always charming and witty. It worked very well, and I am still in awe of the iron hand with which my grandmother ruled my grandfather. The moral of this, I suppose, is that among the vast numbers of humans on the globe, an immense variety of relationships occur. But we are all of the same stuff, and we should try like hell not to hurt each other, whether we are brilliant men or brilliant women, brown-haired men or brown-haired women, or any of the other billions of ways we humans have devised of categorizing one another.

Nicholas L. Gunthner is a graduate student at Harvard studying Mathematics.