I am just trying to explain that, for me, feminism is not only the movement to liberate women. Feminism for me is not charity work, and is only partly ally work. Feminism is also, selfishly, the movement to liberate myself, the boy that I was, and boys like me who are going through similar experiences all over the world.

I am not a feminist because I was bullied. I am a feminist because I’ve spent years thinking about the issues and examining the evidence, and I’ve become convinced that being a feminist is the only position that makes any damn sense. Feminism is the only movement in the world that has anything at all sensible to say about how gender roles are used as a whip to keep people in their place. But I do think my childhood is one reason that I was drawn to examining these issues in the first place, and one reason I was open to feminism.

Emphasis mine. I could be quoting myself. I’m nearly 50 and I’m still dealing with the crap generated by the crap I dealt with in my thirties.

As I get older, I lose patience with those who would make such crap mandatory for everyone.

If I had a penny for every time I’ve had to dicksize some dumbass just so I could establish the right to have a polite conversation about an issue with a nuance or two, I would be a wealthy man.

About half of the techniques I’ve learned for dealing with the testosterone-challenged have been from women.

One part of life as a penis-bearer is the social pressure to wave the damn thing around - an exercise that I find unbearably silly. But I manage to keep a straight face and do it if there is no other way to establish my right to have an opinion. I sigh, reach into my virtual pants and haul out my Patriarch’s Staff and use it as a talking stick.

This leads me to snicker about an inherent advantage in this respect Goddess has granted lesbians. But soon, biotech may allow me to have mine glow in the dark as well.

I cannot always conceal my utter disdain for those who have nothing in thier social toolkit beyond verbal willy-wagging, and this has in some cases limited my opportunities for social intercourse.

But then, talking to freepers is a lot like a bad cornholing. Not only is it nonconsensual, it’s disappointing.

Erm, second thought Richard, if Heart believes no man should identify himself as a feminist, then surely she also means no man should speak as a feminist, even though she said “for feminism” in one comment.

True, which is why I put the parenthetical comment with the other labels (pro-feminist, etc.) in that sentence. More later, I hope, if I have the eyes and energy after grading papers.

I don’t know if that will seem to you like understanding or misunderstanding of what you said. Perhaps I do not understand what you really mean by “savior”. I suddenly suspect, not what I thought at first.

Richard said:

“I’m wondering if there isn’t a difference that is being elided in this disucssion between being a man who presumes to speak for feminism and being a man who speaks as a feminist [..]”

Absolutely spot-on IMV. Actually a recall a few murky thoughts rolling through my brain in just this direction when I was writing my long-ass-as-hell comment. My impression is that women themselves do not speak for feminism, but always as feminists. Perhaps that is not the case; but as there are honest disagreements between women in feminism, it seems to me this is really the proper approach for anyone. Forgive me anyone if this expression causes offense, but to me no one owns it, and everyone does; but the ownership naturally takes different forms for different people.

For me, the difference between speaking for and speaking as comes down to what Lanoire said about men needing to take the lead in speaking to men, holding men accountable for male privilege, etc.

There’s more to say about this distinction and its implications and consequences for men in feminism–which is the title, by the way, of a really interesting book in which the essays tackle precisely the topic we are talking about here–but I need to go. I will try to come back later to fill out the rest of what I am thinking.

I haven’t read feminist writings but have always believed in fairness and good treatment in all relationships.

To me, a male feminist would be someone who truely shares the responsibility of unpaid labour. The 51 hours housework the average women with 1-2 children does per week and 24 hour care women are supposed to provide for children leaves them will little hope of equality because many men will not help truely equally and will not pay for this arduous work.
Even if your man does 10 hours of housework per week you will still be doing 41. Right wing governments would like to get rid of any payments to women who leave marriage therefore making them slaves, this is why women favour the left at least the left give them some credit and protection . To me the huge social welfare system women provide at low or no cost to men is what keeps women poor and therefore easy to mistreat. Women put up with a great deal from men in marriage because if they don’t they often face grinding poverty and work without break if they leave. Your husband cheats on you and if you leave him you will pay the bills for the next 20 years. So if your husband treats you bad you will either have to put up with it or be poor and overworked.
Motherhood needs to be paid. Not because women are greedy but because they are providing services to society that take all their time and money.
In the Animal kingdom females are not slaves to the males. They do usually provide sole care for offspring but are not required to provide 24 hour care ( it would be impossible for a cheater to hunt and not leave her cubs unattended) and are not required to do 51 hours of housework. Althought the 51 hours is not in law, if your children are living in squalor you will be convicted of neglect. 51 hours is what it takes to keep it together ( cooking, cleaning, shopping washing etc etc) and this is no guarentee of a tidy house.
Also in the animal kingdom most of the resources are allocated for motherhood. Men have taken the natural world of support away from women and not replaced it with any resources. The only way to get support for motherhood now is to marry and go along with a husband. They have pronounced marriage to be Holy as it keeps women under control and most of the worlds resources in male hands. So human mothers have very little choice but to be a slave to a man. Im not saying relationships can not be wonderful for some, but the framework for the support of motherhood in human society is very limited, especially when compared to the outlay of time, hard slog and resources.

Society has made Holy an increasing demand for cleanliness which women are expected to provide. “Cleanliness is next to godliness” and a good woman (Slave) will provide this luxurious cleaness at her expense. Women now do about 7 times the washing their grandmothers did and even though there are machines, there is still pegging, sorting, folding and ironing. Imagine that for 7 times the washing your granny did. There is still heaps of handwashing because people have many moore clothes and change them more often. Many clothes now days are not machine washable.
If a man supports sharing this equally and lives this then to me he is a feminist.
In other words if he gives his mate true equality by sharing the huge burden society has given his partner then he truely is her partner, not her slavekeeper. Then and only then he is not just a parasite who feeds his host just enough to keep her alive and of benefit to him.

Ive probably gone off topic but my personal brand of feminism supports women by sharing the resources of the world with mothers. This is how nature created it and intended it. In my vision women would be able to demand equal sharing of unpaid labour in households so that they could pursue a career with the same chances as their husbands or opt to be full time mums with pay, with or without a partner.
I guess we all have our ideas of what feminism is but curiously it starts with the letter F for fairness and also freedom.

I really wish men who believe themselves to be allies to feminist women would get busy addressing all of the many ways men violate women.

Heart

As to sparkane’s post, I’ll repost something I posted today to my blog:

“”To keep a group subordinate, an elite must persuade it that it deserves subordination because of innate inferiorities. A person of an inferior group cannot be the author of her or his own life, but must center on the superior group. Thus women must be presented as mainly sexual, indeed heterosexual, beings who have no life apart from men. And it is essential that a subordinate group not perceive its dominators as oppressors. The primary taboo forbids portraying men-as-a-caste responsible for women’s problems. If one man appears as a woman’s oppressor, another must appear as her savior. When this taboo is broken, men protest.”

““Marilyn French, The War Against Women, Summit Books, 1992

I’m uninterested in men as saviors to feminist women. That is part and parcel of male dominance, male supremacy. Men can be our allies, but we ought to be the ones who recognize that that’s what they are. In the meantime, let men apply themselves whole heartedly to all of the ways that their brothers violate us, all the time.

Heart

I agree that men in the spotlight, getting more airtime than female feminists, is a co-option of feminism.

I don’t agree that this process begins when men identifies as feminists, or that men identifying as feminists naturally leads to this. I believe that a big part of being a male feminist is working on knowing when to shut the fuck up and let women take the lead. This is a process that I think all male feminists can and should go through.

There are, however, aspects of feminism where men should take the lead. For instance, men should take the lead in talking to other men about rape and domestic violence.

Hi RadGeek:

“Sparkane, I don’t actually think it was wrong for Amp to accept the invitation to appear on Air America. But supposing that some position did imply that men should decline all recognition for anti-sexist work, I don’t see why that would disqualify the position from rational consideration. Maybe men should decline any recognition for anti-sexist work. Why not? Maybe sometimes genuinely good deeds have to go unrecognized. Or maybe they shouldn’t. I don’t think that either position is especially obvious, or especially absurd.”

Yes, I agree with that. And yet I still stand by what I said before. I find that this happens when I receive a response to a comment, that I think I’ve been clear and then I guess I haven’t been, and when I try to figure out what I meant, it’s not even completely clear to myself. But I’ll try again.

I think my use of recognition may be something of a distraction. This makes it sound like I meant that men should receive some attention from the media, and as “feminists”. But I think what I was really getting at was more toward the practicality of the policy that no man should allow himself to speak for feminism - at all, as I understand Heart’s view.

Allow me to reiterate a bit. I apologize for the upcoming longwindedness, but I’m trying to be complete, in hopes I will be clearer.

I asked Heart what the difference was between feminist and women’s rights activist, because she said she denied men the former identity but allowed men the latter. This seems wrong to me, because both terms are nothing but words, and as has been noted many times wrt other issues, not just feminism, terms of identification get changed by others (in this case, those not directly associated with the feminist movement, not privy to the terms’ “real” meanings) - so you can’t rely on the meanings of those terms remaining the same, for all people. Sure the radical feminists would maintain the pure original meaning and use of the two terms, just like RMS maintains the pure original meaning of “free software”. But other people, even direct disciples of radical feminists, will get other ideas, and use the terms in different, unorthodox, even “wrong” (from the pure pov) ways; e.g., few outside of the free software movement give a damn that, strictly speaking, they are not running Linux on their machines, but GNU.

(I mention here that Heart’s response to my last comment, telling me what difference she sees between the two terms, hasn’t adequately addressed my question in my view, but it may be simply because I don’t understand what’s going on with all this “identity” stuff, which appears to be more a technical term for feminist theory. I wasn’t going to worry about it right away, but since I’m commenting again, I’m mentioning it.)

This fluidity of identification terminology being the way of things, to maintain that the media will give more recognition to women and not men in the feminist movement, if we call the women feminists and the men women’s rights activists, doesn’t fly with me. Far more likely is the media, given a patriarchal bias, will continue to invite those whom in Heart’s view can’t speak for the feminist movement; and perhaps the net result would be that “women’s rights activists” eclipses “feminism” as a term of frequent use for feminism outside the movement itself. Or there would at least be some pressure in that direction.

This is all to address what I originally thought were compelling arguments of Heart’s in her second comment in this thread, particularly this passage (last paragraph):

“I think when we see men speaking on behalf of feminists, men being the ones in the spotlight, we are seeing ourselves, as women, being subordinated to men in the very movement which intends to bring that power imbalance to an end, particularly when what those men might be saying *as* feminists does not enjoy the support *of* many feminist women. And I think this process begins when men identify as “feminists”, which is why I don’t think they should.”

The only way to effect Heart’s goal here, since it won’t have any effect on the outside world, is for male women’s rights activists to shut themselves up. If Air America calls you and says “Mr WRA, we’d like to talk about all the great work you’ve done for Feminism,” from my current understanding of Heart’s position (should I call it philosophy? outlook?), that man has to stay silent. That man has no voice when it comes to speaking for, or about, feminism. As you say, well, maybe that is the way it is. And I say, sure, on a theoretical level, maybe that’s what’s required.

But will it work?

Heart said, “My view is, men should not identify as feminists”“ ever.” But she says they can and should work for the cause of women. What is the difference between a feminist and a women’s rights activist? Well, one has a voice. The other does not. One is allowed to do all (or perhaps not all?) of the things the other would do for the same cause, but is not allowed to represent it in any way. That is the expectation of complete selflessness on the part of the male women’s rights activists. It can’t work. I don’t see how it could succeed. And not because men won’t do it. Hardly any of us, men or women, are ready for complete selflessness. Feminism, as with all movements, has its internecine struggles, its bruised and bitter egos. Ironically, an artificial enforcement of selflessness is, if I am not mistaken, something that feminism struggles to pull women out from under. Ironically, really to be completely selfless you already have to be spiritually enlightened, but to the degree that a male is enlightened enough to be selfless, he would certainly not be an oppressor, or someone who would try to co-opt the feminist movement for himself, and then it would seem there is no need for such a restriction of his voice - unless where Heart is coming from is that an enlightened male will always on his own part opt for voicelessness in the very movement, existence, and life which has given him meaning and significance; this, and I offer a sincere plead for pardon in saying this, sounds close to saying that a man is constitutionally unable ever to speak for feminism, because he is a man.

I apologize for the comparison, but this strikes me also like the recording industry applying DRM to all their CDs, which punishes their customers, and does nothing to stop the real intellectual property infringement by big-time thieves. Allowing no man to stand with women in equal solidarity seems to me to punish, unnecessarily, ones who should be praised, and does nothing to change the attitudes of the men who so need changing. In fact as a policy, it will certainly alienate many; many men, but also women, I think. And it will do nothing to change whether Air America makes patriarchal decisions about whom to interview from the women’s movement.

That’s just how I see it at the moment. I’m open to persuasion, as always.

I’m sorry that my brief carry-all has turned into this Samsonite mess. That’s what happens when I pack too quickly.

This is not to say that Heart is wrong to say the things she says, or hold the values she holds. If she doesn’t want to call me a feminist, or me to call myself a feminist, that’s no skin off my nose. I even feel less inclined to call myself a feminist because of what she says, regardless of my disagreement - because it’s polite and because I know I’m ignorant of - erm, well, something, if I knew what it was I probably wouldn’t be ignorant, now would I. I just don’t think that refusing ‘recognition’ of men in the feminist movement, that making them unequal - not unequal at all, not unequal in a true way, but artificially unequal - is going to work, or is right, or something.

This is not either to say that men should demand more recognition in feminism. It is about compassion and egos get in the way of compassion very easily. I am 100% with Hissy Cat. But it’s another thing to say that someone can’t have a voice in a movement, none at all. Sure, a man’s voice will not be as convincing, should have less authority. But that’s going to be the natural way of things. That’s not forced. That’s a natural lack of trust. If a man has something to say in feminism, and it’s wrong, people are going to tell him, and he will have less trust invested in him if he’s always wrong. But if he says things that are right, and trust is invested in him, what is wrong with that?

It sounds like more pool time and less babysitting for the women, to me.

I also don’t understand why any woman who is a feminist would object to a man calling himself one. Is hypocracy rampant among feminist males? Certainly. We are products of the culture, and change is a long hard process. I constantly battle with ideas and attitudes instilled in me during my youth. It something we all deal with throughout our lives.

In a way I think that feminist women find it easier to ignore the ways that we too perpetuate the patriarchy. In my experience good male writers of feminist theory often deal with how and why men perpetuate the patriarchy - something that I believe is important to understand if we ever are to get rid of patriarchy.

On the gripping hand, I would not imagine that Ampersand is a feminist because he does “good deeds”. I imagine that he is a feminist because he believes that to be the morally correct choice of action.