Contents Preface 1 Introduction What Is the Second Sexism? The First Sexism Two Kinds of Denialist Forestalling Some Fallacies Structure and Method of the Book 2 Male Disadvantage Conscription and Combat Violence Corporal Punishment Sexual Assault Circumcision Education Family and Other Relationships Bodily Privacy Life Expectancy Imprisonment and Capital Punishment Conclusion 3 Explaining Male Disadvantage and Thinking about Sex Differences Beliefs about Males Questions about the Beliefs Conclusion 4 From Disadvantage to Wrongful Discrimination Conscription and Combat Violence Corporal Punishment Sexual Assault Circumcision Education Family and Other Relationships Bodily Privacy Life Expectancy Imprisonment and Capital Punishment Conclusion 5 Responding to Objections The Inversion Argument The Costs-of-Dominance Argument The Distraction Argument Defining Discrimination 6 Affirmative Action Rectifying Injustice Consequentialist Arguments Conclusion 7 Conclusion Does Feminism Discriminate against Men? Are Men Worse off than Women? Taking the Second Sexism Seriously Conclusion Bibliography List of Cases List of Legislation and Other Legal Instruments Index This edition first published 2012 © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of David Benatar to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Benatar, David. The second sexism : discrimination against men and boys / David Benatar. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-67446-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-470-67451-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sex discrimination against men. 2. Men–Psychology. I. Title. HQ1090.B463 2012 305.32–dc23 2011038087 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. To my brothers Preface Sexism negatively affects not only women and girls, but also men and boys. While the former manifestation of sexism is widely acknowledged, few people recognize or take seriously the fact that males are the primary victims of many and quite serious forms of sex discrimination. The central purpose of this book is to draw attention to this “second sexism” and to respond to those who would deny that it exists. It is worth pre-empting the joke that a book about discrimination against males must be a very short book. Although this is a relatively short book, this is not because the scope or seriousness of the problem it discusses is limited. Instead it is (partly) because a longer book is not required to show that there is an extensive and dangerous second sexism. That said, the book develops, at much greater length, the arguments I advanced in an earlier paper on this topic. The editors of Social Theory and Practice, to which I had submitted that paper, invited four responses. These were published alongside my original article as well as my rejoinder in the April 2003 (vol. 29, no. 2) issue of the journal. I am grateful to the editors of the journal for permission to draw on those earlier papers of mine in writing this book. I also acknowledge the use of material used in Chapter 6 that is drawn but significantly adapted from two other previous works of mine: “Diversity limited,” in Laurence Thomas (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Social Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 2008, pp. 212–225; and “Justice, diversity and racial preference: a critique of affirmative action,” South African Law Journal, 125(2), 2008, pp. 274–306. The first draft of this book was written while I was a Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at Princeton’s University Center for Human Values for the (northern hemisphere) 2009/2010 academic year. I want to thank the director, faculty and staff of the Center, both for awarding me this fellowship and for making my visit such an agreeable one. I could not have asked for a more stimulating environment in which to conduct my research and do my writing. The Princeton University libraries were also an invaluable resource and I appreciate the assistance provided by the library staff. My thanks also go to the University of Cape Town for the period of sabbatical leave that enabled me to take up the fellowship and write the book. Leo Boonzaier, Meghan Finn and Andrew Fisher provided very able research assistance. Jessica du Toit compiled the list of bibliographic references from my endnotes, and detected some typographical errors in the process. I am grateful to have had such excellent assistants. I presented an overview of the book as the Morris Colloquium Speaker at the University of Colorado at Boulder. At a Laurence S. Rockefeller Fellows Seminar at the University Center for Human Values in Princeton, I presented parts of Chapter 5. In the Admiral Anderson Speaker Series at the United States Naval Academy, I presented the material on women and combat. I am grateful to those who attended these events for their comments. Kingsley Browne kindly commented on my response (in Chapter 4) to his Co-Ed Combat. He and I still disagree on the question of women in combat, but his critical comments were most welcome. Nannerl Keohane provided helpful written comments on parts of Chapter 5. I am especially grateful to Don Hubin and Iddo Landau, the two reviewers for Wiley-Blackwell, for their extensive and extremely helpful comments. Finally, my thanks go to members of my family. The book is dedicated to my brothers. DB Cape Town 20 June 2011 1 Introduction Many men are far more oppressed than many women, and any feminist who was determined to support women in all situations would certainly encounter some where her support of women against men would increase the level of injustice in the world. … No feminist whose concern for women stems from concern for justice in general can ever legitimately allow her only interest to be the advantage of women. Janet Radcliffe Richards, The Sceptical Feminist, London: Penguin Books, 1994, p. 31. What Is the Second Sexism? In those societies in which sex discrimination has been recognized to be wrong, the response to this form of discrimination has targeted those attitudes and practices that (primarily) disadvantage women and girls. At the most, there has been only scant attention to those manifestations of sex discrimination whose primary victims are men and boys. 1 What little recognition there has been of discrimination against males 2 has very rarely resulted in amelioration. For these reasons, we might refer to discrimination against males as the “second sexism,” to adapt Simone de Beauvoir’s famous phrase. 3 The second sexism is the neglected sexism, the sexism that is not taken seriously even by most of those who oppose (or at least claim that they oppose) sex discrimination. This is regrettable not only because of its implications for ongoing discrimination against males but also, as I shall argue later, because discrimination against females cannot fully be addressed without attending to all forms of sexism.