TED: Why gender equality is good foreveryone.
By Michael Kimmel
I’m here to recruit men to support genderequality. Wait, wait. What? What do men have to do with gender equality? Genderequality is bout women, right? I mean, the word gender is about women.Actually, I’m even here speaking as a middle class white man. Now, I wasn’talways a middle class white man. It all happened for me about 30 years ago whenI was in graduate school, and a bunch of us graduate students got together oneday, and we said, you know, there’s an explosion of writing and thinking infeminist theory, but there’s no courses yet. So we did what graduate studentstypically do in a situation like that. We said, OK, let’s have a study group.We’ll read a text, we’ll talk about it, we’ll have a potluck dinner. so everyweek, 11 women and me got together. we would read some text in feminist theoryand have a conversation about it. And during one of our conversations, Iwitnessed an interaction that changed my life forever. It was a conversationbetween two women.
One of the women was white, and one wasblack. And the white woman said – this is going to sound very anachronistic now– the white woman said, ‘All women face the same oppression as women. All womenare similarly situated in patriarchy and therefore all women have a kind ofintuitive solidarity or sisterhood. And the black woman said, ‘I’m not so sure.Let me ask a question. So the black woman says to the white woman, when youwake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, what do you see? And thewhite woman said, I see a woman. And the black woman said, you see, that is theproblem for me. because when I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror,she said, I see a black woman. To me, race is visible. But to you, race isinvisible. You don’t see it. And then she said something really startling. Shesaid, that’s how privilege works. Privilege is invisible to those who have it.It is a luxury, I will say to the white people sitting in this room, not tohave to think about race every split second of our lives. Privilege isinvisible to those who have it. Now remember, I was the only man in this group,so when I witnessed this, I went, ‘Oh, no.’ and somebody said well what was that reaction?And I said, well, when I wake up in the morning and l look in the mirror, I seea human being. I’m kind of the generic person. You know, I’m a middle classwhite man. I have no race, no class, no gender. I am universally generalizable.So l like to thin that was the moment I became a middle class white man, thatclass and race and gender were not about other people, they were about me. Ihad to start thinking about them, and I had been privilege that had kept ininvisible to me for so long.
Now, I wish I could tell you this storyends 30 years ago in that little discussion group, but I was reminded of itquite recently at my university where I teach. I have a colleague and she and Iboth teach the sociology of gender course on alternate semester. So she gives aquest lecture for me when I teach. I give a guest lecture for her when sheteaches. So I walk into her class to give a guest lecture, about 300 studentsin the room, and as I walk in, one of the students loos up and says, oh,finally, an objective opinion. All that semester, whenever my colleague openedher mouth, what my students was was a woman. I mean, if you were to say to mystudents. There is structural inequality based on gender in the United Status,they’d say, well of course you say that. You’re a woman, you are biased, when Isay it, they go, wow, is that interesting. Is that going to be on the test? Howdo you spell structural.
So I hope you all can see, this is whatobjectivity looks like. Disembodied western rationality. And that, by the way,is why I think men so often wear ties. Because if you are going to embodydisembodied western rationality. You need a signifier, and what could be abetter signifier of disembodied western rationality than a garment that at oneend is a noose and the other end points to the genitals? That is mind-bodydualism right there. So making gender visible to men is the first step toengaging men to support gender equality. Now, when men first hear about genderequality when they first start thinking about it, they often think many menthink, well, that’s right, that’s fair, that’s just, that’s the ethicalimperative. But not all men. Some men thin – the lightning bolt goes off, andthey go, oh my god, yes, gender equality. And they will immediately begin tomansplain to you your oppression. They see supporting gender equality somethingakin to the cavalry, like, ‘thanks very much for bringing this to ourattention, ladies, we’ll take it from here. This results in a syndrome that Ilike to call premature self-congratulation. There’s another group, though, thatactively resists gender equality, that sees gender equality as something thatis detrimental to men. I was on a TVtalk show opposite four white men.
This is the beginning of the book, I wrote,Angry white men. These four angry white men who believed that they, white menin America, were the victims for reverse discrimination in the workplace. Andthey all told stories about how they were qualified for jobs, qualified forpromotions, they didn’t get them, they were really angry. And the reason I’mtelling you this is I want you to hear the title of this particular show. Itwas a quote form one of the men, and the quote was, A black woman stole my job.And they all told their stories, qualified for jobs, qualified for promotions,didn’t get it, really angry. And then it was my turn to speak, and I said, ‘Ihave just one question for you guys, and it’s about the title of the show, ablack woman stole my job. Actually, it’s about one word in the title. I want toknow about the word, my, where did you get the idea it was your job? Why isn’tthe title of the show a black woman got the job? O a black woman got a job.Because without confronting men’s sense of entitlement, I don’t think we’llever understand why so many men resist gender equality.
Look, we think this is a level playingfield, so any policy that titles it even a little bit, we think, oh my god,water’s rushing uphill. It’s reverse discrimination against us. So let me bevery clear: white men in Europe and the United States are the beneficiaries ofthe single greatest affirmative action program in the history of the world. Itis called ‘the history of the world’ so, now I’ve established some of theobstacles to engaging men, but why should we support gender equality? Ofcourse, it’s fair, it’s right and it’s just. But more than that, genderequality is also in our interest as men. If you listen to what men say aboutwhat they want in their lives, gender equality is actually a way for us to getthe lives we want to live. Gender equality is good for countries. Genderequality is good for countries. It turns out, according the most studies, thatthose countries that are the most gender equal are also the countries thatscore highest on the happiness scale. And that’s not just because they’re allin Europe. Even within Europe, those countries that are more gender equal alsohave the highest levels of happiness.
It is also good for companies. Research by Catalyst and others has shownconclusively. That the more gender-equal companies are, the better it is forworkers, the happier their labour force is. They have lower job turnover. Theyhave lower levels of attrition. They have an easier time recruiting. They havehigher rates of retention, higher job satisfaction, higher rates of productivity.So the question I’m often asked in companies is, boy, the gender equalitything, that’s really going to be expensive, huh? And I say, oh ho in fact, whatyou have to start calculating is how much gender inequality is already costingyou. It is extremely expensive. So it is good for business. And the other thingis, it’s good for men. It si good for the kind of lives we want to live,because young men especially have changed enormously, and they want to havelives that are animated by terrific relationships with their children. Theyexpect their partners their spouses, their wives, to work outside the home andbe just as committed to their careers as they are. I was talking, to give youan illustration of this change – some of you may remember this. When I was alot younger, there was a riddle that was posed to us. Some of you many wince toremember this riddle. This riddle went something like this. A man and his sonare driving on the freeway, and they’re in a terrible accident. And the fatheris killed. And the son is brought to the hospital emergency room. And asthey’re bringing the son into the hospital emergency room, the emergency roomattending physician sees the boy and says, ‘oh, I can’t treat him, that’s myson.’ How is this possible? we were flummoxed by this. We could not figure thisout. Well, I decided to do a little experiment with 16-year-old son. He had abunch of his friends hanging out at the house. Watching a game on TV recently.So I decided I would pose this riddle to them. Just to see, to gauge the levelof change. Well, 16-year-old boys, they immediately turned to me and said, it’shis mom, right? No problem, just like that. Except for my son, who said, ‘well,he could have two dads.’
That’s an index, an indicator of how thingshave changed. Younger men today expect to be able to balance work and family.They want to be dual-career, dual-career couples. They want to be able tobalance work and family with their partners. They want to be involved fathers.Now, it turns out that the more egalitarian our relationships, the happier bothpartners are. Data from psychologists and sociologists are quite persuasivehere. I think we have the persuasive numbers, the data, to prove to men. Thatgender equality is not a zero-sum game, but a win-win. Here’s what the datashow. Now, when men begin the process of engaging with balancing work andfamily, we often have two phrases that we use to describe what we do. We pitchin and we help out. And I’m going to propose something a little bit more radical,one word: share. Because here’s what the data shows, when men share houseworkand childcare, their children do better in school their children have lowerrates of absenteeism, higher rates of achievement. They are less likely to bediagnosed with ADHD. They are less likely to see a child psychiatrist. They areless likely to be put on medication. So when men share housework and childcare,their children are happier and healthier, and men want this. When men sharehousework and childcare, their wives are happier. Duh. Not only that, theirwives are healthier. Their wives are less likely to see a therapist, lesslikely to be diagnosed with depression, less likely to be put on medication,more likely to go to the gym, report higher levels of marital satisfaction.
So when men share housework and childcare. Theirwives are happier and healthier and men certainly want this as well. When menshare housework and childcare, the men are healthier. They smoke less, drinkless, take recreational drugs less often. They are less likely to go to the ERbut more like to go to a doctor for routine screenings. They are less likely tosee a therapist, less likely to be diagnosed with depression, less likely to betaking prescription medication. So when men share housework and childcare, themen are happier and healthier. And who wouldn’t want that? And finally, whenmen share housework and childcare they have more sex. Now, of these four fascinatingfindings, which one do you think Men’s Health magazine put on its cover? HouseworkMakes her horny. Not when she does it. Now, I will say, just to remind the menin the audience, these data were collected over a really long period of time,so I don’t want listeners to say, hmm, OK, I think I’ll do the dishes tonight. Theredata were collected over a really long period of time. but I think it showssomething important, that when Men’s Health magazine put it on their cover,they also called, you’ll love this. Choreplay. So, what we found is somethingreally important, that gender equality is in the interests of countries, ofcompanies, and of men, and their children and their partners, that genderequality is not a zero-sum game. It’s not a win-lose. It is a win-win foreveryone. And what we also know is we cannot fully empower women and girlsunless we engage boys and men. We know this. And my position is that men needthe very things that women have identified that they need to live the livesthey say they want to live in order to live the lives that we say we want tolive. in 1915, on the eve of one of the great suffrage demonstrations downFifth Avenue in New York City, a writer in New York wrote an article in a magazine.And the title of the article was, “feminism for Men.’ And this was the firstline of that article: Feminism will make it possible for the first time for mento be free.
Thank you.
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