Six

THE BURDEN OF INITIATION

Robert Rosenfeld

Among the various members of the so-called men’s movement, there are those who hold that men are victimized, perhaps even oppressed, within so- ciety. Detractors of such claims are likely to point to the well-documented victimization of women in society and dismiss the claims of the “men’s libe- rationists” as mere “whining.” The accusation of “whining” is one of a num- ber of powerful verbal weapons in the male-role shame arsenal, intended to shut men up, to make them accept pain and exploitation without complaint, to make men adapt to circumstances rather than attempt to change them. Men are supposed to be tough and strong, not weak or dependent, and “whining” is a betrayal of these imperatives. Such verbal bludgeoning might be consi- dered the male analogues of attempts to shame women away from by charging them with being “strident,” “bitchy,” “aggressive,” or anything else appropriately unfeminine, should they dare to demand change. The accusation of “whining” is, I believe, misplaced when it comes to the rather serious, and largely accepted, expendability of men in the military, the industrial workplace, and the of our cities and prisons. However, that is not my subject here. The complaint I address is one that does sound much more like mere “whining”: that men bear a disproportionate share of the burden for initiating relationships with women, from the initial conversa- tions, through sexual advances and resolutions. A complaint made by men two decades ago is still echoed by men today, although not as frequently: “Why won’t women ask men out? Why do men always (or usually) have to do the asking?” In our professional organization’s Proceedings and Ad- dresses, a male philosopher states:

The most important role in my life has been . . . that as a male I was supposed to be sexually aggressive. What this meant was that if I wanted to go out on a date with a woman, have a dance with her, or have any sort of sexual contact with her, it was up to me to take the in- itiative. . . . [Feminists] have denied the powerlessness of the sexually aggressive role. (To be fair, lots of men have denied this also.) I felt hardly anything but powerlessness in this role. . . The powerlessness comes in having to ask for something that another is in a position to grant. (Pepple, 1994)

52 ROBERT ROSENFELD

This may seem a trivial concern compared to problems of workplace and harassment, poverty, rape and domestic violence. Howev- er, I will consider arguments that the male burden of initiation does have some serious consequences, contributing to the actual incidence of harass- ment and rape, and placing upon men the burden of choosing between two undesirable (to most men, as well as women) alternatives: (1) sacrificing love; or (2) becoming harassers or rapists. To the extent that male-female relation- ships continue to place the initiation burden on the male, this choice, and the anger, resistance, and alienation it inspires, will continue. In articulating the male-liberationist/advocate’s position on the burden of initiation, I will draw primarily on the later work of Warren Farrell (1986 and 1993). I focus on Farrell’s work for two reasons: First, he has articulated the problem of the male initiation burden fairly well, particularly as it is actually experienced by many men, and has done so fairly recently. Secondly, the sub- stance of his work has been unjustifiably ignored by those who would be his critics. In part because Farrell has written for the popular press, and in part be- cause of the sloppiness to which such writing is prone (and Farrell’s work does not escape this), academia has paid little attention to him except for occasional footnotes. In more popular writings critical of his books, the substance of Far- rell’s position has been ignored, superficially labeled, or ridiculed and ad- hominem away (Frankel, 1988; Faludi, 1991, pp. 300–304; Nussbaum, 1993.) I will outline Farrell’s portrayal of the male initiation burden and its consequences, particularly with respect to initiation-related rape and harass- ment, adding comments of my own as needed. First, however, some prelimi- nary cautions: Many claims about men and women have many exceptions. Many are properly intended to be about general trends, or about social norms —what people are made to believe they are supposed to be like. In this re- spect, the present subject is no different. Some women are not sufficiently attractive to have the “sexual power” that Farrell attributes to women. Some men who are especially extroverted or attractive may experience no powerless- ness in the initiator role. Many women do initiate directly, and many men have been grateful recipients. And I would guess that this is increasing in the 1990s, particularly among those in their twenties or younger. I say “guess” because I do not know if there is any good empirical research on this matter yet. The same is likely to be the case with a number of empirical claims made and referred to in this paper. Some of them are documented by Farrell in his books, and some may be subject to dispute. I hope that such claims that seem doubtful may, for the present purposes, be treated at worst as hypotheses, as calls for further re- search, or as invitations for some of us, myself included, to do more homework. For the meantime, I assume what seems to me to be the case: that many men and women—or at least too many of them—stay close to traditional male-initiation demands. To the extent that this burden of initiation is not equalized, or to the extent that media-driven norms favor more traditional burdens, the problems to follow will show themselves in male-female relationships.