Sir, - I commend The Irish Times for publishing the thoughtful reply by Kathleen Lynch and Dympna Devine (EL, November 7th) to recent criticisms of the "Exploring Masculinities" programme. Week after week women and men have been subjected to incoherent diatribes by John Waters and others who seem to know very little about what gender is. Some of the ideas underpinning Mr Waters's simplistic understanding of feminism and feminists, in particular, are not only misleading and tedious, but intrinsically flawed.
An assumption that feminism is out of control and totally responsible for a malaise in men's identities is now common currency in some sections of your newspaper. Yet a range of central questions (the economic context and growth of individualism, for example) is not being explored in relation to a whole range of gender issues (such as the substantial increase in young male suicide and in female-headed households). Instead, the school of reactionary "gender journalism" simply blames feminism (which never seems be defined) for a range of social problems that only men seem to experience.
Social change does not begin and end with feminism ("If only", some might say!). As someone who has actually written a substantial (forthcoming) text on the historical development of Irish feminism, I can provide ample evidence of this to John Waters. Neither can it be suggested that the entire goal of the women's movement has been to strip men of their right to equality or their identity. This is deeply offensive to those of us who are feminists and promoters of egalitarian politics. It is even more offensive to those of us who have male partners, family, colleagues and friends. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Linda Connolly, Department of Sociology, University College Cork.