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Remember the men

Equal Writes

by Thomas Dollar

I must confess I was a bit nervous about writing for a new season of Equal Writes. As a newly repatriated U.S.American coming off a year in Sierra Leone, I wondered how I could be relevant to a campus discourse on feminism. When I was a freshman, Republicans in control of Congress were attempting to force Big Government to overrule a family’s end-of-life decision, while Princeton liberals were protesting to save the Senate filibuster. (Whoops.)

But I have learned some important lessons from the world of international development, and there’s one I find particularly important for the world of collegiate feminism: it’s about the men too. I worked on a number of women’s empowerment projects in Sierra Leone—from expanding economic opportunities for small businesswomen, to ending sexual and domestic violence—and, without a doubt, the worst possible thing we could do was ignore the men. Aid organizations have learned this the hard way: women come home “empowered” from training sessions, only to face increased gender-based violence out of men’s resentment. (Liberia has experienced an increase in violence against women since the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. This is no doubt due in part to increased reporting, but may also be a case of a woman in power leading to more violent men.) More recent (and more successful) programs have sought to build a new gender paradigm by changing the long-term attitudes and behaviors of both men and women. Both sexes receive training, and teachers demonstrate why gender equality benefits everyone. This is a much more radical shift—and requires more work—but it’s impossible to build a better society without it.

Sierra Leone is at a very different stage in gender-equality from Princeton or the United States as a whole, but the need to remember the men is just as great here. All of the major “women’s issues” of our time are issues that impact men profoundly, require men’s involvement and engagement, and, in my experience, are issues about which young men feel a great deal of confusion and uncertainty. In fact, I think it’s a shame that we refer to them as “women’s issues” at all; not only is the term inaccurate, but it causes men to withdraw from talking and caring about them. Let’s call them “people’s issues.”

Although 3.2 million American men suffer relationship violence, the vast majority of instances of sexual assault and partner violence are committed by men against women. And our discourse on the subject largely reflects this. Unfortunately, this reality often leads us into the trap of viewing men as perpetrators and The Problem when it comes to sexual assault, rather than as a necessary part of the solution. I went through a (sex-segregated) training session by a SHARE advisor my junior year. Most of the men in the room were initially uncomfortable, anticipating being badgered, accused, or made to feel guilty about their sexuality. Once the advisor showed us that this would not be the case, we had a very productive and insightful dialogue. (For all you new Princetonians, SHARE is an excellent campus resource. My junior year, it had only one straight, male undergrad advisor, which was a damned shame since this was the demographic group that should have been most involved.) Ending sexual assault is a complex business, but it will certainly require openness and honesty in communicating feelings and desires, a more responsible attitude towards alcohol use, a respect for everyone’s personal and bodily autonomy, people’s ability to say “no” when they mean it, and people’s ability to say “yes” when they mean it. Moreover, our mission shouldn’t just be to prevent something bad (sexual assault), but to promote something good—respectful, honest and equal sexual relationships. This is something that benefits men and women, and will require active participation by men and women.

Issues of family and career are also people’s issues. Most of us reading this blog know that women still make less money on average than men do—even though by the end of this year women will constitute the majority of the American work force. While I’m sure that there are many complex reasons for this, one that’s often cited is women’s greater likelihood to take time off for their families, and this family leave adversely affecting future earnings. Three-fifths of women work outside the home, yet our career-track system remains stuck in the Mad Men-era. In Norway, by contrast, parents are guaranteed a year’s paid leave after the birth of a child—six weeks of which must be taken by the father. This has led to some of the most gender-equal parenting in the world—even among immigrant families that come from traditional societies. For a country that supposedly holds family values paramount, the United States does approximately nothing to make balancing career and family easier. (Though many employers—Princeton University among them—grant some paid parental leave.) Encouraging active fatherhood through paid incentives is something that benefits everyone.

Issues ranging from reproductive rights (we’re still waiting for male birth control) to sex discrimination (in this case, for not being a “manly man”) are not just women’s issues either. Feminism is a subset of a greater belief in human right—and those rights can’t be obtained without the participation of all of humanity.

50 thoughts on Remember the men

  1. “People’s issues?” Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like the same kind of anti-feminist drivel people spew when they want to avoid talking about the fact that, while obviously patriarchy affects men, women deal with the brunt of the limitations and the consequences. The only reason you’d need to rename it “people’s issues” is because the population at large still refuses to view women as people without a few men thrown in there to humanize the batch, and it stinks that we have to pander to this in order to get things done. Also, given the domination of men in government, military, media, etc., how much do I NOT want to be told that I have to listen to and yak about their issues even more in my precious feminist forums lest we seem too “specialized” in our concerns- interested in women, not “people,” yaknow?

  3. Agreed with both comments above. This piece is a little off putting to me because it reads as “what about THE MENZ???”. Clearly feminism needs to be about men’s issues too but putting them on our backs like this is not the way to do it.

  4. In fact, I think it’s a shame that we refer to them as “women’s issues” at all; not only is the term inaccurate, but it causes men to withdraw from talking and caring about them. Let’s call them “people’s issues.”

    This is where you go wrong. The thing is, a vast majority of the points you raise are valid! But there’s a fine line between “patriarchy hurts men too”/”patriarchy cannot end without men as allies” and “women’s issues aren’t really about women.” There are valid critiques of the phrase “women’s issues,” but here’s thing — if men withdraw from something and don’t care anymore because it’s labeled as mattering to women, it’s because they’re sexist asshats. As others have said, saying “we should call it people’s issues” whatever your intent, sounds a whole lot like the common anti-feminist “I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist” argument. And that is about refusing to critically engage with male privilege, patriarchy and misogyny.

    Unfortunately, this reality often leads us into the trap of viewing men as perpetrators and The Problem when it comes to sexual assault, rather than as a necessary part of the solution.

    And yet, it’s not an either/or. It’s precisely because the vast majority of perpetrators are men (of course not to be taken as saying that the vast majority of men are perpetrators — please tell me I don’t actually have to say this?) that men need to be a part of the solution. The two are directly related.

    I have to say that to me, this post doesn’t come off so much as a) there are strategies that feminists can use to get more men involved in the movement, let’s talk about them, or b) hey, men! you need to start giving a shit, and here are the reasons, but c) scolding feminists for not doing a better job of talking about men’s issues and avoiding mentioning the fact that feminist issues are centered on women for a reason.

  5. Cosign on Cara’s (and others’) comments. You mention a few valid points, Thomas, but I don’t see many feminist groups I’ve been involved with denying or ignoring any of them. The onus is on us men to get involved, not for women to make men feel more welcome.

  6. Remember the men?!?! REMEMBER THE MEN?!?! I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a position where they’ve been allowed to be forgotten.

  7. I agree with a lot of Cara’s response, so I will keep my comments short, and specific.

    To this fatherhood benefits issue, I would suggest you check out Shelley Correll’s “Getting a Job: Is there a Motherhood Penalty?” http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/2/0/3/8/p20381_index.html

    In this very well designed study, Correll finds a significant motherhood *penalty* in employment (based on status characteristic discrimination) and a fatherhood *premium*. Hardly the kind of anti-family policies you suggest are rampant.

    This sounds a lot like the University of Chicago student group promoting men in business that launched last spring–part of why this probably won’t sit well with people that reside over at this corner of the internet.

  8. Remember the men?!?! REMEMBER THE MEN?!?! I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a position where they’ve been allowed to be forgotten.

    I forget them quite regularly when I’m tending to myself in the women’s room.

    Besides that, amen.

  9. I see this guy’s point, but the way he made it really rubs me the wrong way.

    You know, we get told that we’re “really” humanists all the time. You think we don’t know this dance?

    When someone says they are a feminist, don’t insist that they “are really” a humanist, or “should” call themselves an equalist, or whatever else you are or think they ought to be. When someone calls something a “feminist” issue, don’t insist that it’s “really” a human rights issue. Don’t do this even if you and that feminist agree about the issue at hand. You agree, so why argue over whose label is better?

    Don’t try to tell someone else what to call themselves. That’s part of what got us into this mess in the first place. Something can be a feminist issue and a human rights issue at the same time, obviously, and we don’t really need to be wasting time arguing over which label is superior. You use yours and I will use mine.

    I’m not going to argue if you want to call yourself a humanist and call these issues people’s issues. Don’t argue with me if I call myself a feminist and call them feminist issues or women’s issues. We have every right to call ourselves what we want. You may have said “Let’s call it people’s issues” lightly, you may have meant it lightly, but it came across as condescending, dismissive, and . . . whatever the word is for when you make a group invisible by taking their name out of something while their struggle for equality is still a going goddamn concern. “Dickly” comes to mind.

    You want to come and share experience and insight, do it, but don’t tell us what we are and aren’t, please. Maybe someday we will be at a point where things are more equal across the board and we will be ready to call it a human issue, but right now, no, I think it needs to be this way. Women are invisible, an underclass. The visible label of women’s issues is important in its own way right now.

    If that makes men stop listening or if that bothers them, tough shit. That’s not our problem. That’s theirs. It’s not up to us to police our language to make it all nice and comfy for them.

    And to the management, just FYI: 101-level fail should not be occuring in posts here.

  10. … I just double-checked the header at the top of the blog: I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say ‘WHATABOUTTHEMENZISTE’.

  11. I appreciate the tone of the post. It seems written for more of an anti-feminist or borderline anti- audience, with the desire to show those people that feminism is not a bunch of man-hating women who want to throw all men in jail for being potential rapists, while simultaneously expecting them to pay for dinner. He’s trying to reassure those potential men (most of the people in his audience, I presume, would be men) that by embracing feminism, one is not required to accept themselves as violent, stupid oafs who will be controlled by women (as this seems to be the absurd line of thinking for most anti-feminist men). This is apparent in the way that the author starts each paragraph: with a nod to the social injustices that men experience regularly, so that they feel understood and therefore more trusting of what is being presented; and following it up with in-depth and undeniable evidence of the fact that women are, the ones bearing the brunt of whatever issue, like:

    Although 3.2 million American men suffer relationship violence, the vast majority of instances of sexual assault and partner violence are committed by men against women.

    That said, this is something I would show my male friends who roll their eyes when I discuss women’s issues… not something I’d necessarily tell a bunch of seasoned feminists. On the other hand, I think it’s good that it’s here, because a lot of curious on-the-fencers stop by via Google or blogrolls and would really benefit from hearing a male feminist’s point of view.

  12. *LMAO* Holy crap dude, I can’t believe you imagined this post would be accepted on a feminist blog. Have you ever actually read a feminist blog before?

  13. I take offense to people saying a lack of identification with feminism means someone doesn’t engage in the destruction of patriarchy. Or that they don’t center women in their analysis and activism. Because, for me, the human rights issues of colonialism, capitalism, and racism do a lot more to help me understand gendered oppression than feminism does.

  14. Shelby — I was referring to the eleventy billion drive by commenters we get here every day who pop in and say “what about the men? i’m not a feminist, i’m a humanist, BECAUSE I DON’T HATE MEN,” not to people who have legitimate critiques of feminism.

    In my experience, those many people with legitimate critiques (including those strong enough where they refuse to identify with feminism) aren’t the ones who make the “humanist” argument or argue against the very idea of having a movement specifically dedicated to women — they’re the one who say “most feminism is fucked because it doesn’t take all women and all systems of oppression into account.” Two totally different groups, and I’d never even dream of purposely conflating them. And whenever I’ve seen the term “anti-feminist” used, as I used it above, it has always been to refer to those who are MRAs, against reproductive rights, rape apologist, opposed to gender equality, etc., not to those who have issues with feminism on principled grounds that come from a place where gender equality is a deeply important issue to them. I apologize if I was unclear.

  15. A good number of your points are entirely valid, but you couldn’t have gone about saying it in a worse way.
    This is an almost LITERAL ‘Wat about teh menz?’ feminism 101 fuck-up. Please learn the basics of feminism before writing for a feminist site.

  16. Oh, and I should have made this clearer: a good number of your points are WAY off. I think other people have done a decent job of identifying which points these are, and really I don’t feel like wasting any more time on this drivel. So that’s all I’ll say.

  17. @cacophany- How is it that trying to get the on-the-fencers involved requires selling out the people whose struggle you’re involved in by taking them out of the name of the very movement? And why is pandering to sexists more important than not pissing off whatever feminists might be listening and failing to point out very basic issues- that men should be interested in ending sexism simply on the basis that it hurts women, not because they have to be reminded that their asses are on the line here, too? The implication to me is that it’s fine to be self-absorbed and not really give too many hoots about what happens to chickdom, because guys get to be self-absorbed and only talk about their issues here, too.

    And dewd hasn’t explained why he thinks it is that why “all the major ‘women’s issues'” “require men’s involvement and engagement.” I’m a feminist in great part because I want other people to STOP engaging and involving themselves in the business of my reproduction, my body image, and the ways I choose to use my mind and sexuality (and to stop bitch-slapping me with reminders of the degredation of my sex on a daily basis, thankyewveddymuch). This reads like nothing more than an attempt by the dewdly sector to impose themselves once more on chickdom by telling us all how terribly necessary and utterly vital they are to the movement, and how they ought to be way more central on account of this. Cuz it’s not like my life is supposed to revolve around men in more or less every other way, of course, and it’s not like much of the culture life of this and most other countries already consists of listening to dewds pontificate and chat and speak and yak and plot and plan and every other word the thesuarus can spew, frequently about issues (abortion, single motherdom, etc.) that in fact do not affect them anywhere near as much as they affect me and others of my genital endowment, who here have the chance to make some of you yakkers sit and listen for a goddamn change.

    Men, by all means, support feminism, tell sexism to take a hike. But I’m not going to yet again take the backseat while men pop up in the women’s movement like fucking whack-a-moles to pull as much attention their way as they can get. You’ve got the government, the military, the media, most religions, and the lion’s share of the power in sports, music, and business (and oh, I could go on, but my ire maketh me feel faint).

    Please do not get your entitlement on and try to co-opt feminism as well.

  19. “I worked on a number of women’s empowerment projects in Sierra Leone—from expanding economic opportunities for small businesswomen, to ending sexual and domestic violence—and, without a doubt, the worst possible thing we could do was ignore the men.”

    Holy monkeyfuck. I did not just read that line on a blog post on Feministe.

    I went to class and apparently came back hallucinating.

    Jesus fucking christ.

    I feel like I just landed on Mars after reading that post.

    Must go slam my head against the wall now.

  20. I disagree with the tone of the post, and yet I do believe that challenging individual men to DO BETTER, see better, BE BETTER is a good portion of the fight for women’s rights domestically and internationally, and to do so means talking to as opposed to talking about.

  21. Right. So this post is pretty head-bleedy. Thing is though, I’m one of the men-folk, and If it’s head-bleedy for me then holy crap it must be causing some headsplosions amongst those whose actual lives and oppressions you’re diminishing. So since I still have a mildly intact brain atm, I’m going to try to explain why this post was not one of histories greatest plans. The bonus of this? That I get to use teh man-privileges to deflect any attempts at calling me an angry feminist, and boy do I miss exercising my man powers.

    1. Sexism and feminism are terms that have long activist and academic history in addressing women’s oppression. They, like most terms of their type, sprang out of a liberation movement. At some point in teh histories, the men-folk found a super great way to diminish these terms: we’d ungender them. See, if everyone is a potential target of sexism, then we can invisibilise the structural oppressions that actually privilege men. I’m pretty sure you aren’t deliberately trying to do this, but when you ungender feminism into “people’s issues”, you make invisible the power imbalances feminism seeks to make visible. In short, you act against one of the main critical projects of feminism.

    2. Feminists have limited activist time and labour. When you tell feminists that they need to remember the men, you ask them to center men in a movement that is fundamentally (boy do I love that word when it’s actually used correctly) about centering women. Newsflash, the men can remember themselves. I went to a conference over uni break here in oz where one of the days was comprised of autonomous caucuses. Crafternoons and other non-structured activities were organised for those not attending a caucus (which were btw: women’s, culturally and liguisticallly diverse, disability and trans and genderqueer). And after the white able-bodied cis men finished sitting around for the day, a bunch of them decided to complain that they had wanted to have a discussion about privilege, and felt excluded from the caucuses. Not once had they considered that in a whole day, they could have just had the fucking discussion. Want men to be more involved in feminism? Tell the men to be more involved in feminism, and have discussions with them yourself, don’t go blaming feminists for failing to center the men.

    3. There’s a whole bunch of conflation happening in your post between specificity and various structural oppressions. There is lots of legitimate critical work that needs to be (and has been, is being) done on the specific experiences of men under kyriarchy. It needs of course, to be done by the men. But looking for instance at the intersections of patriarchy, heterosexism (and many others, racism is pretty standout in the specificity of its tactics towards men too) and the way in which they tactically vary in regulating the bodies and identities of men does not mean OMG men are totally affected by sexism too. It means that kyriarchy is heterogenous in the regulatory tactics that is enunciates, and that we need to distinguish between these tactics and structural oppressions. (and hey, I’m totez up on the fact that not everyone identifies as an anti-kyriarchy activist and I’m certs not trying to do the irritating “subset” argument. these are mainly just the critical lenses I look through)

    So there’s probably a whole bunch of pile-on been happening while I wrote this, but I’m totes using my man privilege to speak regardless. Oh yeah, the man timez.

  22. I’m really disappointed by the unenlightened responses to the post. Sounds like a lot of knee-jerk reactions to a perceived “threat” to the centrality of women to the issues of sex and gender equality. Last I checked there was more than one sex, and more than one gender. Women do suffer the brunt of sexism, true. But that’s no reason why to close our eyes, turn away or act all indignant when someone tells us the truth of the matter that women aren’t the only ones who are caged by a binary organization imposed on a multiplicity of experience.

    Just shows some really disturbing ignorance of what I’ll call the current generation’s idea of what feminism is all about. Isn’t that what most of you are? New feminists?

    Work for the liberation of women, do it! But good luck getting very far if males get left behind. That’s like trying to undo racism and thinking that somehow white people don’t have to participate (or get dragged along kicking and screaming if need be). That’s like POC saying “we don’t need to understand ‘whiteness’!” And maybe THEY don’t because they’ve had to study it carefully, know it intimately to survive it. But white folks sure do need to know the contours of their racial falsehoods; and will it be other men alone to show men the error of their ways? Hardly. If you think men are going to somehow magically wake up one day and say “let’s undo our privilege cuz it hurts women” you are in lalafantasy land.

    Do all of you truly understand how masculinity works? Not in relation to women, amongst men? Surely you don’t think it always relates to women? Do you know it enough to effectively fight against its most pernicious qualities? To see how we enslave boys as much as girls into “acting” in a way that continuously perpetuates traditional sexism in one way or another?

    Feministe, I ask you, is this a forum for people to just agree with each other ad nauseum, or is a forum to discover truths?

    feminist blog? for what purpose? to hold each other’s hair back while we puke?

  23. Please do not get your entitlement on and try to co-opt feminism as well.

    Is this really what the author is doing? I agree with some of the criticism of this post, especially the responses from Naamah and Li about the issue of labels and the fact that calling something “personist” or whatever rather than feminist does not make it universal in a context in which “person” is assumed to mean “man” unless otherwise specified. Moreover, the problem is not, and has never been, that men are “forgotten.” But at the same time, I feel that some of these responses either assume bad faith on the part of the author, or simply get stuck on the title of the post and so never reach the heart of the argument.

    Which argument, as I see it, is really pretty simple– simple enough, in fact, that the author probably did himself a disservice by distracting us from it with inessential data. This argument, as I read it, is: (1) many men understand feminism and “women’s issues” as a way of dividing the world into competing teams (a position that, of course, does not recognize that feminism is meant to be an antidote to such a perspective, because those who hold that position are unaware of or indifferent to the ways in which sexism has been doing this for centuries); (2) as long as they see feminism in this way, men will understand it as something that it is in their interest to combat, or at least ignore as far as possible; (3) that as long as many (most?) men feel this way, the ability of feminism and feminists to create change will be hampered; and (4) in order to deal with this, we need both to think about what men think they know about feminism and do more to get them to be active participants in creating change rather than seeing themselves as the passive “victims” of that change. Empowering women to recognize and pursue their rights in a context in which few men recognize those rights AS rights, or see the ways in which they are denied/violated, will only produce conflict, not progress.

    If that is indeed the argument, I think it makes sense– maybe to the point of seeming obvious, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be said. I also think that by beginning with his own experience in international development, the author reminds us that this is a practical problem at least as much as a theoretical one. Not involving men does not work, in the way that our efforts very much need to work. Again, I think he could have presented this argument, if I read him right, in a better way, but it seems like much of the response is not addressing it at all.

  24. I’m a man who teaches women’s studies and has been involved in anti-violence work for years (for anyone at Brown, I’ll be speaking in Providence next week), so at the risk of joining in the pile-on on Thomas…

    It is vital to involve men, of course. But time and again, I’ve seen my own blog hijacked by the “humanists” and the “not a feminist, but…” types who are reluctant to acknowledge the vast disparity between men’s and women’s experience of violence and harassment.

    These are women’s issues. Yes, they involve men too on every level. But rape is not a disembodied crime; for the most part, it is a very specific crime done by those with male bodies to those with women’s bodies (and, much less often, to others in male bodies). Calling the issue a “people issue” blurs the distinction between perpetrator and the person who is assaulted; it permits us to avoid facing the misogyny that is woven into the very fabric of masculinity in America (and a great many other places.)

  25. “I worked on a number of women’s empowerment projects in Sierra Leone—from expanding economic opportunities for small businesswomen, to ending sexual and domestic violence—and, without a doubt, the worst possible thing we could do was ignore the men.”

    – I studied Development Management for a while and this statement was found to be (at least in large part, but for various reasons) true for a lot of projects (I think in India) that the course discussed… I don’t think it’s an outrageous statement at all.

    If there’s anyone on Feministe that works in International aid/women’s empowerment in developing countries could comment on what they’ve experienced that would be interesting.

    Also laprofe63 I can’t imagine that you’ve ever spent much time on Feministe if you think anyone here is simply acting

    ‘all indignant when someone tells us the truth of the matter that women aren’t the only ones who are caged by a binary organization imposed on a multiplicity of experience.’

  26. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the article is without merit, I just don’t think it should or would ever be accepted in an explicitly feminist blog. That’s why I (almost) never comment here or on any other feminist blog, I prefer to lurk, and don’t feel comfortable calling myself a feminist. It’s also why I think it’s odd that Hugo teaches women’s studies, but i’m sure he explains that pretty much every time he meets someone.

    The material brings up some good points, as patriarchy obviously does affect men and how they interact with women, and when it comes to ‘soul distortion’ any amount is unpleasant, even if you’re not the main victim, but a feminist blog is not likely to be a good venue for the discussion.

  27. “- I studied Development Management for a while and this statement was found to be (at least in large part, but for various reasons) true for a lot of projects (I think in India) that the course discussed… I don’t think it’s an outrageous statement at all.”

    It is an absolutely outrageous statement. Yes, I agree that work needs to be done with men. This is pretty obvious to anyone involved in feminism. But saying that “the worst thing” that can be done while working to empower women is to ignore men is absolutely, completely, and totally ridiculous. The worst thing that can be done while working to empower women is to ignore women. This is a no-brainer, yet it is a problem that feminists encounter all the time.

    Rather than comment further, I’ll simply ditto Hugo and Li.

  28. Cara and others have said most of what needs to be said, but I’ll just put it out there that I’ve been in Thomas’s position before — writing about something I knew about but wasn’t quite an expert in yet, to an audience of people who were more seasoned than I. The criticisms can be hard to take. So Thomas, I hope you’ll take them constructively. You’re on the right track and your heart is in the right place; you’re right that men do need to do more pro-feminist work, and that for gender equality to ever become a reality, the work can’t all be done by women. I would just encourage you to look again at who you’re putting the onus on to do that work, and who is most harmed by the status quo. There’s a reason feminism is woman-centered; there’s a reason that it’s distinct from humanism; and there’s a reason why feminist women bristle when we’re told that we need to work with men.

    Posting here isn’t easy. I hope you’ll take the constructive parts of these comments to heart, think it through, and try again. Take it from a seasoned pro at blog-fails that some of the best learning moments come from getting smacked down and figuring out how to get back up again.

  29. Yes, Thomas, please keep writing here and elsewhere. I’ve had my own share of what Jill calls “blog-fails” for which I have been rightly excoriated, and from which I have tried, with some but not perfect success, to learn.

  30. Thanks, Jill, for putting it all in perspective. And just one quick comment to Thomas: Your tone, Thomas, your tone.

  31. Any changes that a feminist group wants which can be realistically attained without any participation by men, do not require an iota of attention to men.

    Any changes that a feminist group wants which can be realistically attained with only minimal participation by men, require only minimal attention to men.

    Any changes that a feminist group wants which can be realistically obtained only with equal participation by men, are going to require quite a bit of attention to be paid to men.

    This has nothing to do with feminism specifically or with men specifically. Generally speaking it is difficult to get ANY human to reliably follow the precepts of ANY group, if the group in question isn’t involving said person. Those statements hold true for men and women, christians and non christians, vegans and omnivores, Republicans and Democrats, and everyone else.

    This is an unpleasant reality for disempowered groups, which is probably why it always raises ire. Because even if something is 100% of your issue as it exists right now, and even if it will be 100% of your issue once that you have managed the sought-after change… the change that you seek may require the participation of people outside your group.

    So while your ovaries are your own (no attention to men needed!) to change abortion law for the better isn’t going to happen without convincing some male voters and politicians (attention to men needed.) Or, while I and other Jews may have primary ‘say’ regarding Nazi hate crimes against synagogues (no attention to Gentiles needed), we can’t deal with it as a small minority, unless we get the help of Gentiles.

    In both of those example cases, the attention to the empowered group is both temporary and yet necessary to attain the goals of the disempowered group.

  32. As a note to all who commented on my post, especially to those who took issue with the tone: the post was originally published on Equal Writes, and was only re-posted on Feministe as part of a cross-posting agreement. This post was part of a freshman week blogging series. My intended audience was Princeton University freshmen, most of whom have never read a feminist blog before, or even thought much about gender issues–not regular Feministe contributors. While many of you probably still take issue with what I had to say (and I may take issue with what you have to say), I hope this clarifies some of the questions of “What was this doing on Feministe?!”

    Peace.

  33. It seemed pretty clear from the first line that Feministe was not the intended audience, so statements to the effect of “learn feminist blog posting 101” were simply rude to the author who must have been asked to cross post.

    You’re right Hazy Jane, that I haven’t spent a lot of time here, which is why I was disappointed by the reactions. Because they totally turned me off. When I come here it’s to learn something. What I learned from this post is don’t mention men and feminism because a lot of people are gonna cry “foul!” real fast.

    And that just saddens me, because I’ve been an active, proud feminist for nearly 30 years now and see how little has changed in the very long history of feminist struggle. Women have made some modest gains but the work of changing how men are socialized has yet to begun. Then here I read younger feminists seeing that as secondary to some other “more important” agenda items.

    Nothing will change of any significance without serious changes to what is considered acceptable for boys/men too. Girls/women will continue to be limited by a course of life deemed acceptable for them, if men remain tethered to their antiquated system of understanding their own gender performance.

    Women will stay subordinated without that equally important change –unless, of course, they create their own private paradise with no men. I see that happening. Oh yeah, any day now.

  34. @ the author, Thomas: thanks for a good piece, the links were interesting. Funny how we’re waiting for male contraception in advance of the trusty condom, but we do have all manner of Erectile Dysfuntion meds….hmmmm. Priorities, Thomas. Priorities. Keep on keepin’ on.

  35. Pingback: Making Men Part of The Solution | The Achilles Effect

  37. I liked the post and understood your point. How was the original entry received by its intended audience at Princeton?

  38. @Lucita: I’d be happy to answer all of your questions– on my own blog, in a day or so. Check back and I’ll e sure to go in-depth about everything you ask.

  40. If you think men are going to somehow magically wake up one day and say “let’s undo our privilege cuz it hurts women” you are in lalafantasy land.

    So… we women should stop waiting around and just go ahead and kill ’em all, then? 😀

  41. We can focus on women-centering and gazes and whatnot all day, but I’m a programmer, you see. I’d rather find a specific problem with a number, look at what the numbers are and look for ways to make them go down and then do those things. Sometimes they will be unpleasant or amoral things.

    The unfortunate thing about revolutions: They require aid because the revolutionaries have less power by definition. Inconvenient for the Americans that had to seek aid from the French; devastating for women who, by the nature of the system they fight against, (which always dictates terms of engagement, another reason I wish we didn’t have to have the revolution) have only their oppressors to turn to.

    It inspires absolute rage to have to work with some of the rulers, but if there’s one thing this atheist learned when certain theists tried to push creationism, it’s that ideological purity is a privilege. There are people that do not believe the things you do, but want the things you do. Associate with them. Manipulate them. Help them. Use them. It works.

  42. “Nothing will change of any significance without serious changes to what is considered acceptable for boys/men too. Girls/women will continue to be limited by a course of life deemed acceptable for them, if men remain tethered to their antiquated system of understanding their own gender performance.”

    I’m pretty positive that feminists are already on the ball with that one. Feminists discuss the damaging effects of masculinity and rigid gender roles all the time – and they give explanations for how we can help to alter those problems. That fact is another reason that this post likely rubbed people the wrong way so badly.

  43. @Bagelsan, 😀

    believe me, i hear ya. Why do you think I bothered to check out Feministe? The girl with the long gun on the masthead, that’s why.

    @ Faith, masculinity as displayed by males is policed by men. Feminists can come up with many brilliant ideas, and you’re right, it is part of the greater discourse now. But women are by and large shut out of that socialization process throughout all its stages. Men are masculine because other men say they are, not because women do. What’s the feminist solution to that?

    All the more reason why to support males like Thomas who are talking about changes needed centered on men, and saying its feminist, especially given how many young women outright reject the label these days too.

  44. “What’s the feminist solution to that?”

    Laprofe63,

    I’m not going to give an explanation for the feminist explanations for dealing with masculinity. There have been several -books- printed by feminists on that particular matter. If you look around the internet, you will find an abundance of writing by feminists on masculinity. bell hooks has published at least a couple of books on masculinity, for starters…

    http://www.amazon.com/Will-Change-Men-Masculinity-Love/dp/0743456076

    The information is out there if you are willing to look for it.

    “All the more reason why to support males like Thomas who are talking about changes needed centered on men, and saying its feminist, especially given how many young women outright reject the label these days too.”

    I have no objections to supporting men doing feminist work. I simply found his post rather vomit-inspiring. If he wants to be accepted by feminists and actually do some good, he’s got a long way to go in order to do that if that post was any indication.

  45. re: laprofe63 (comment 33):

    I totally agree with everything you said. The comments like this one: “Feminists discuss the damaging effects of masculinity and rigid gender roles all the time – and they give explanations for how we can help to alter those problems” are irrelevant to the issue, because all that is being said is that feminists talk about that stuff, too.

    As someone concerned with the oppression of women and ending mysogony, I am far less likely to listen to a male telling me that they know best how to end sexism against women, than I am to listen to a woman telling me the same thing. I don’t understand how it makes any sense at all for us to tell men “yeah, yeah, we get it, you have to conform to gender roles, you can’t cry in public, whatever. Boo-hoo. So listen to me, a woman, tell you how to stop being the victim of sexism against men, which is perpetuated by a patriarchal system. HEY, why aren’t you listening to me, you sexist asshole?!”

    Think about it, seriously. Telling men that we, as feminist women, know best how to address issues that men have is ludicrous. We need to include the ways that sexism and The Patriarchy(c) affects men as well, or we won’t get anywhere we want to go.

  46. [Apologies if this posts more than once; I’ve been having trouble getting the site to load…]

    Thomas: “the post was originally published on Equal Writes, and was only re-posted on Feministe as part of a cross-posting agreement”

    As a regular reader of Feministe, I too was completely baffled (and, yes, offended) by this post, because despite what laprofe63 says in comment 22, I’m not at all a “new feminist,” and I don’t generally regard Feministe as a Feminism 101 space. I appreciate that this piece was written for a different audience, and while I still feel like some things could have been phrased better so as not to evoke the “what about the menz???” comparison, I’m jazzed to see young men getting involved with feminism and feminist work, and demonstrating that the patriarchy hurts men, too, so that it’s not only women who benefit from feminist work.

    That said, I’m still confused by the decision to crosspost this particular post into this particular space, without any additional commentary. I feel like even a line stating something like “Here’s something we discussed over at Equal Writes during Freshman Week — what do you all think?” might have kept some of us regular readers’ heads from exploding. Telling me I’m not the intended audience doesn’t entirely explain how the post ended up in my blog reader…

  48. Hello all,

    I’m the co-editor of Equal Writes, and I was the one who decided to post Tom’s article here. I haven’t commented so far because frankly I’ve been a little disappointed at the reactions to his post, but now I think it’s appropriate to explain Equal Writes’ philosophy, and why I think this post does belong on Feministe, even if – and I freely admit this, and apologize for not being mindful enough of potential reactions – the post’s title was perhaps unfortunate.

    Princeton is a very diverse school, and for a college community, it’s conservative. Equal Writes is the first feminist publication the school has ever had, and we were only founded last year. At EW, we follow the “big-tent feminism” philosophy – we believe that there are different ways to be a feminist, and different interpretations of what feminism means, and that we can work through these differences, because we are all united by a basic dedication to women’s equality with men, and an end to gender-based injustice. I don’t agree with every post I put up, but I also don’t think I’m the last word on what feminism should be. There are too many men and women at Princeton (and in the world) who think feminism is a joke, or refuse to align themselves with the movement even though they fundamentally agree with its principles.

    Because of this, we’re a more conservative blog than Feministe. Our readers and bloggers don’t always agree with each other. We sometimes have misogynistic or disrespectful commenters, which is difficult for me, because I often don’t know how to react. But what disappoints me about the reaction to Tom’s post is the fact that he fundamentally agrees with all of you. Yes, you may object to his tone, but he’s really on our side. And I was really shocked by the suggestion that we edit our posts for the Feministe audience – because we’re a feminist blog too. Feminism should not be a walled community, or a discourse among people who think exactly alike. And I thought the point of having guest-bloggers was to have new and different takes on what being a feminist means. Tom is a feminist. He deserves to be heard, and while it’s legitimate to criticize him, the vitriol in these comment forums seems unwarranted to me.

    Anyway, I hope we’ve all learned something from this – I certainly have, and I know Tom has too. I will be more careful in editing further posts for Feministe. But I really wish that we could have had a more respectful discussion about this – as Tom points out, it’s only by working together that we’re going to get anywhere, and while it’s important to respectfully disagree when necessary, I think we also need to be mindful of the fact that we’re all passionately working for the same cause.

  49. So… an article was reposted from a 101-style blog levelled at USAmerican college freshmen, without any clear indication of why this was being done, or even that this was actually what was taken place. Seasoned feminists spoke up in anger at being commanded to pay attention to men (as though this was a new idea that had never occurred to us before! As though some of us haven’t devoted our *lives* to working in coalition with male activists, to formal studies of masculinity in history and in contemporary society, to raising sons! The arrogance is breathtaking.).

    Now the co-editor of said college blog is ‘a little disappointed’ at Feministe readers’ criticisms of the article, which read to me as patronising, inappropriately authoritarian (right down to the title – ‘Remember the Men’) and absolutely stinking of white USAmerican college student privilege. Moreover, the author himself has dropped by to essentially say ‘Ha, this post wasn’t actually intended for you anyway, so STFU!’, but has failed to actually address anyone’s concerns about what he originally said.

    I would like to politely and sincerely, but also very seriously, question both the editors’ decision to invite the ‘Equal Rites’ site to post on Feministe, and the ‘Equal Rites’ editors’ decision to post this particular article on a feminist blog.

  50. “I think it’s appropriate to explain … why I think this post does belong on Feministe”

    I’m still waiting for this part. You think it was appropriate because Tom’s a feminist too? I don’t see how that at all invalidates the “write for your audience” rule, since I thought that was a universal. “Feminists are really humanists” has a whole different meaning when you’re saying it to:

    A) privileged non-feminists who think we are evil baby-eating man-haters.

    B) feminists who are often told to forget discussion about women’s issues to tend to men’s issues and to pretend that institutional misogyny doesn’t exist.

    It’s kind of obvious that the two groups don’t fit into the same audience when talking about sexism, and if it’s pretty silly to be thumbing your nose at people because of your own lack of forethought.

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