Payback’s a Bitch

Facebook wall-stalking a friend the other day, I happened upon the following post: “THIS IS A TOAST......TO US....FOR THE MEN WHO HAVE US, THE LOSERS WHO HAD US, AND THE LUCKY BASTARDS WHO WILL MEET US! SEND THIS ONLY TO PRETTY LADIES INCLUDING THE ONE WHO SENT IT TO YOU.”

The post went on, in chain letter form, to instruct its recipient to “hit 15 pretty girls on your friends list and let them know they are pretty.” After recovering from the initial disappointment that I had not received this post—apparently, my friends don’t think I’m very attractive—I was left puzzled. Though I knew that post was mostly just a harmless saying thought up by some frivolous girl somewhere out in cyberspace, I couldn’t shake the feeling that such a shout out is a bit indicative of the latest shade of girl power.

No, I was hit not with a wall post that night but with a realization: Sweet old feminism’s all grown up, and she’s created a monster named Male-bashing. Despite the fact that American women are achieving at higher rates than ever before—they are accepted to colleges at higher rates than men, for instance—in the latest mutation of female empowerment, it has become totally acceptable for women to dismiss men as worthless bastards.

This seems like a shame to me. I very much enjoy the company of men and am more than a bit bothered to think it is acceptable to talk about them in crude language. Certainly if any man were ever caught talking about a woman in these sorts of terms, he’d be slapped across the face many times over. This sort of talk is disrespectful to good men everywhere—husbands, friends, and fathers. It’s disrespectful to our future sons.

At fair Harvard, the boys-are-bad trend is alive and well. Earlier this semester, the Harvard student group Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) hosted a “Fuck The Man” party. Though the group assured that it was merely a “feminist dance party,” and that its tagline was not an “anti-male slogan,” the title was tough to stomach. The hosting of a “Fuck The Woman” party surely would’ve had the national media swarming Harvard Yard. Semantics, I am afraid, cannot be dismissed so quickly.

This matter is entirely a tangle of double standards. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published a book in 2005 entitled, “Are Men Necessary?”, in which she muses over whether or not women should bother making time for men in their lives at all. Though the book did receive some harsh criticism (and I imagine Dowd’s been on fewer dates since its publication), I somehow doubt a book entitled, “Are Women Necessary?”, would be the bestseller that Dowd’s book was. No, such a book would surely be condemned as sexist writing and exiled to the shelves of some backwater bookshelf.

The double standards are subtler still. At Harvard, several powerful all-female student groups (I’m not talking about social organizations in this area) exist, such as the 300-plus member student group Harvard University Women in Business (HUWIB). Though groups like HUWIB are not explicitly anti-male, the fact that they are essentially gender exclusive and the nature of their mission statements suggest an underlying negativity against the other sex. The group purports to aim to enable women to be more able participants of the global marketplace, but I fail to see how alignments on the basis of gender improve members of the marketplace. HUWIB is not only sexist, it’s idiotic. Let’s imagine for a moment that HUWIB had a male counterpart—Harvard University Men in Business. I cannot believe most Harvard students would think that was acceptable. I dare say Drew G. Faust (soon to be Harvard’s most powerful official, gender aside) would chime in on the affair. I will leave it to the reader to ponder the implications of Harvard’s “Women’s Center.”

The defense of these various forms of reverse sexism is that women were oppressed for so long—American women have had the vote for less than a hundred years, for example—that these forms are acceptable, necessary even. Yet if it is a state of gender equality we are striving for, then enhancing divides between the genders undermines the mission. To command the respect of society, it is helpful to respect that society to begin with.

Female independence is wonderful. Economic liberation, sexual liberation, and familial liberation—I am for all of these things. Women should feel that they are capable of doing anything a man can do and lead successful lives free of boyfriends or husbands. Resorting to male-bashing, however, is not the way to demonstrate this prowess. It’s the modus operandi of an awfully bitter female.

There is still progress to be made on the feminist front, but by dwelling on anti-male sentiments or fostering anti-male behavior, we will have reached an impasse. Feminism cannot survive unless we shed the mentality of, “I once was oppressed, therefore I have the right to behave badly.” When it comes to gender equality payback is not only a bitch—it’s completely ineffective.


Lucy M. Caldwell ’09 is a history and literature concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.