Towards a Discussion of Male Self-Hatred

In a recent article in Psychology Today called “Why Some Dads Are More Protective of Their Daughters,” Farid Pazhoohi wrote the following:

In evolutionary terms, daughters [who are more attractive and who therefore have] higher perceived mate value may attract more male attention, thereby increasing the risk of early or risky sexual behavior. Fathers may respond to this—consciously or not—by increasing their involvement, offering guidance, and providing a protective buffer.

Tentatively phrased though it may be, the way this statement implicitly blames women for men’s inability to control themselves in the presence of female beauty suggests that the study Pazhoohi’s article summarized, of which he was a co-author, was at least implicitly informed by the patriarchal value that locates a man’s honor—his manhood and masculinity—in his ability to protect the women of his family from the sexual predations of other men. In its most extreme form, of course, this is the value system that legitimizes so-called “honor killings.” We like to think we are “more evolved” than those cultures in which honor killings are at best tolerated and, at worst, fully legitimized, but that same value system is at work here in the States as well. The “purity balls” that had their heyday in conservative Christian circles in the 1990s and early 2000s are nothing more than a less overtly violent manifestation of that system.

When I read the passage I quoted from Pazhoohi’s article, I thought immediately of a conversation I had fifteen or so years ago with an Introduction to Literature class. One of my students was telling us about a TV sit com they’d seen in which a young couple who’d been making out in the girl’s bedroom had to figure out where the boy could hide so her father, who’d come home earlier than expected, wouldn’t find him there. The boy hid in the girl’s closet and, after the father miraculously didn’t find him there, snuck safely out the window.

I don’t remember what my student’s point was, but I couldn’t resist chiming in with my own real-life experience of a very similar scenario. I was home from college during my senior year. One of my sisters—she’s six years younger than I am—had stayed home from school because, she said, she wasn’t feeling well. I’d gone out for some reason, and when I came back, I knocked on my sister’s door to see how she was feeling. She didn’t answer, so I opened the door a bit just in case she didn’t hear me and saw her in flagrante delicto with her boyfriend, Michael. I immediately closed the door and asked them to get dressed and come out into the living room. I waited a couple of minutes, but nothing happened, so I knocked again, receiving this time a muffled reply from my sister, who was clearly trying to sound as if she were sick in bed. I opened the door and there she was, alone, with the blanket pulled up around her neck. “Where is he?” I asked.

“Where is who?”

“Michael. I saw him.”

“Michael? No. No one else is here.” Her voice cracked as if she had a horrible sore throat.

“Come on. Don’t bullshit me. I know what I saw.” I started to look around the room and eventually opened her closet, where I found Michael trying desperately to hide behind the clothes that were hanging there. It was hard not to laugh at him, but I didn’t.