One man struggling against his gendered inequalities: are men scared of ‘hegemonic femininity’?

Today, as usual when I finish my work and entered the tube station, I picked up the Evening Standard to read during my trip; it’s always the best way to survive the claustrophobic, stressed and crowded London Underground.

Today, an amazing first page:

(Read online)

I’m astonished with the way Men’s Movements are growing. In the 60s and 70s western societies saw the growing of feminists movements and activism, and now, in the second decade of the 21th Century I guess we will watch the rise of men’s movements and activism against their inequalities.

Their space is being threatened by women, which are still less payed compared to men who have the same role, have less access to higher roles in business and in other institutions such as the military, have lower access or limitations in competitive sports (in 2012 Women’s boxing will be, for the first time, included in the Olympic Games, but with limitations in the number of athletes and rounds), have a higher rate as victims of domestic violence and rape, and so on.

Call me ‘obnoxious bigot’ feminist, call me radical, whatever, but I think Tory MP Dominic Raab must live in another dimension or maybe just came back from a possible future, where women rule over men. All evidences (stats and studies in Social Sciences)  in western societies (and I’m only talking about the western societies) points to higher inequalities of women, and there’s still men who believe in their social victimization. It would be possible, seeing and accepting men as victims, if we were living in that ‘possible future’, but this is the present, and the ‘reality’ is very different.

Is he afraid of loosing what he imagines as being is ‘masculinity’?

Or,

Is he afraid of a possible ‘hegemonic femininity’?

Looks huge, but in comparison… political participation is gendered!

Country	Prime Minister or President
Australia	Prime Minister Julia Gillard 2010-present
Argentina	President Maria Estela “Isabel” Martínez Cartas de Perón 1974-76
	President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner 2007-present
Bangladesh	Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia 1991-1996, 2001-2006
	Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina 1996-2001, 2009-present
Bolivia	President Lidia Gueiler Tejada 1979-1980
Brazil	President Dilma Vana Linhares Rousseff 2011-present
Bulgaria	Prime Minister Reneta Indjova 1994-1995
Burundi	Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi 1993-1994
Canada	Prime Minister Kim Campbell 1993
Central African Rep.	Prime Minister Elizabeth Domitien 1975-1976
Chile	President Michelle Bachelet Jeria 2006-2010
Costa Rica	President Laura Chinchilla Miranda 2010-present
Croatia	Prime MInister Jadranka Kosor 2009-present
Dominica	Prime Minister Mary Eugenia Charles 1980-1995
Finland	President Tarja Halonen 2000-present
	Prime Minister Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki 2003
	Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi 2010-present
France	Prime Minister Edith Cresson 1991-1992
Gabon	Interim President Rose Francine Rogombé 2009
Germany	Chancellor Angela Merkel 2005-present
Guyana	President Janet Jagan 1997-1999
Haiti	Prime Minister Claudette Werleigh 1995-1996
	President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot 1990-1991
	Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis 2008-2009
Iceland	President Vigdis Finnbogadóttir 1980-1996
	Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir 2009-present
India	Prime Minister Indira Gandhi 1966-1977, 1980-1984
	President Pratibha Devisingh Patil 2007-present
Indonesia	President Megawati Sukarnoputri 2001-2004
Ireland	President Mary Robinson 1990-1997
	President Mary McAleese 1997-present
Israel	Prime Minister Golda Meir 1969-1974
Jamaica	Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller 2006-2007
Kyrgyzstan	President Roza Otunbayeva 2010-present
Latvia	President Vaira Vike-Freiberga 1999-2007
Liberia	Interim President Ruth Sando Perry 1996-1997
	President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf 2006-present
Lithuania	Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskienė 1990-1991
	President Dalia Grybauskaitė 2009-present
Malta	President Agatha Barbara 1982-1987
Moldova	Prime Minister Zinaida Grecianii 2008-2009
Mozambique	Prime Minister Luísa Dias Diogo 2004-2010
New Zealand	Prime Minister Jenny Shipley 1997-1999
	Prime Minister Helen Elizabeth Clark 1999-2008
Nicaragua	President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro 1990-1997
Norway	Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland 1981, 1986-89, 1990-96
Pakistan	Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto 1988-1990, 1993-1996
Panama	President Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodríguez 1999-2004
Peru	Prime Minister Beatriz Merino Lucero 2003
Philippines	President Maria Corazon Aquino 1986-1992
	President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo 2001-2010
Poland	Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka 1992-1993
Portugal	Prime Minister Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo 1979-1980
Rwanda	Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana 1993-1994
Sao Tome & Principe	Prime Minister Maria das Neves Ceita Baptista de Sousa 2002-04
	Prime Minister Maria do Carmo Silveira 2005-2006
Senegal	Prime Minister Mame Madior Boye 2001-2002
Slovakia	Prime Minister Iveta Radičová 2010-present
South Korea	Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook 2006-2007
Sri Lanka	Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike 1960-65, 1970-77, 1994-00
	President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga 1994-2005
Switzerland	President Ruth Dreifuss 1999
	President Micheline Calmy-Rey 2007, 2011-present
	President Doris Leuthard 2010
Trinidad and Tobago	Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar 2010-present
Turkey	Prime Minister Tansu Çiller 1993-1996
Ukraine	Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko 2005, 2007-2010
United Kingdom	Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 1979-1990
Yugoslavia	Prime Minister Milka Planinc 1982-1986

(Source: http://www.ergd.org/Premiers.htm, acceded 18.Jan.2011)

Huge list, hem? Optical perspective, since presently only 18 women are President or PM all over the world, and all the other known rulers are men.

Women’s role in politics is growing, but still far from equality. Possible? Don’t know… maybe one day, when institutions change. But first there’s the need of changing institutions and, therefore, discourses; a change that has to be done by all genders (men, women, lesbians, gays, transgenders, and so on).

As I said before, maybe one day… changing discourses is not the same as changing sweater everyday; there are two factors consider: the way cultures are organized and the way political processes occur; of course, both are related and also involve other categories such as ethnicity and social class.

Definitely equality will not happen during my lifetime, but I’ll keep on struggling with my favourite ‘weapon’: my own discourse through my writings.

A small step for man and giant step for Portuguese mankind

I may be drunk, because we had a party in the house tonight, but I’m sober enough to write this post congratulating all the Portuguese politicians that didn’t allow a referendum (a waste of money in a pseudo-democracy) and voted today for recognition of the homosexual marriage. Finally a simple human right is being partly fulfilled, the willing of choosing and being socially recognized has maker of the that choice. I know this is only a social matter, but society is everything for Humans and when we are not recognized by our own society we feel like we are not part of it. All people want is to be “normal”, and “normality” means having the same rights because we all are “normal” humans who have the right to be recognized as “normal” citizens. I just hope one day, in a short period, adoption will also be allowed for homosexual couples. A mother figure and a father figure are social constructions and like thirty years ago people thought that children would not be “normal” grownups raised only by one of the parents, and nowadays we can see that they are “normal” human beings, why shouldn’t a child with two mothers or two fathers be a “normal” future grownup?  Please MVA keep on fighting! Don’t give up just because you can marry with the person you love! Keep on fighting for the reconstruction of society’s idea of “normality”!

P.S.: I’m no longer drunk, but tonight really did drink too much and it inspired me to write this post and to write my book review.

Before I go to bed…This is what my university is about!

Today I had an AD seminar about the work of anthropologists in International Financial Institutions, with a special focus on World Bank. After the seminar we students, our teachers and David Marsden (the researcher), went to the Education Institute pub to drink and talk. It’s was really nice and finally I’m feeling I’m no longer a misfit person. Here the system is very conservative on the matter of form, but amazingly liberal in content. Meaning, after a long talk with David Marsden, I realise that here I’m allowed to be an Activist, with a big A, and still be considered an anthropologist. Here anthropologists exist without that big A, and those who have an Anthropology background, can be at the same time anthropologists and activists. Even those with big ‘A’, the academic anthropologists and some of our teachers just simply say, using a big ‘A’: I’m an ACTIVIST!

This is what my univerity is about!