Feminism | Posted by Julie Z on 07/17/2009
The Case for Male Feminists
disclaimer: i do not know this man. but i'd be willing to be his friend. he has cool hair, too.
Great post by “eitheror” at dailykos.com, who makes the case for male feminists – quite eloquently at that. I’m so glad a man wrote this article for men: it’s so important that this happens more often. He makes some great points about the public reactions to Palin and even Ann Coulter, before summarizing:
“I am defending women. Not because they asked me to do it, or because they need me to do it, but because its the right thing to do. I am defending women because they are human beings who are entitled to the dignity and consideration of that condition like anyone else. How can we say that we aspire to the virtue of our ideals, like equality, when we entertain positions that denigrate our wives, girlfriends, sisters and mothers? I understand its popular in culture to see women as objects of our lust who have silly and emotional ideas and mannerisms, but is that the world we want to leave our daughters (when we have them)?
The next time your buddy says something about women that is patently disrespectful (usually followed by the congratulatory round of ‘know what I mean?’ ‘s for the insight into the nature of that most curious of creatures) respond with ‘Hey man, how’s your mother doing?’ “
There is also a poll at the end of the post that asks: Feminism is?
The answers:
Good – 21%
For baby killing, witch, lesbians – 10%
bad – 8%
a kind of soup – 8%
the radical notion that WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO!!! – 51%
Dear lord.
(5 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)
Loading ...
Read other posts about: male feminists
Post Your Comment
Robin S. @ at 5:52 pm, July 17th, 2009
Well hey, it’s cool that 72% of people who voted in the poll support women. And of the 18% left over who didn’t vote for “bad,” there’s probably a good number of people who support feminists but just felt like choosing the funny option.
I don’t get why so many people get the idea in their heads that feminism is only for females. Feminism is about equality for everyone above all else, and that concerns everybody, not just women.
Zoe @ at 11:36 pm, July 17th, 2009
I think feminism just needs to be explained to the general public in very simple terms: it’s about equality for everyone. Then maybe men would find it a little less scary because, hey, equality is good, right?
Alex Catgirl @ at 11:19 am, July 18th, 2009
If I advocate for black civil rights,does that make me black? If I advocate for immigrant rights, does that make me an immigrant? And best of all if I advocate for sane ecological practices, does that make me a rainforest?
Of course not! Which is why males can not be feminists, it’s asking them to be something they are not, worse yet allowing men in puts women at risk of losing control of their own movement.
Instead of women deciding what traits an ideal women should have, men will start doing it, and we will be right back where we started – women having to live up to somebody else’s ideal of what we should be like.
That’s a big part of the reason why feminism has always had so much in-fighting – Different women have different ideas of how things should be, that said at least all the factions had/have women’s best interests at heart.
Laura @ at 10:30 am, July 21st, 2009
In my Feminist Theory class, we spent a day debating whether men could be feminists. Many of the people in the class said that they could. But the one man in the class was less certain, which we all found very interesting.
I think that men can be feminists, but their approach to feminism will ultimately be different than the approach that women have to feminism (and different women have different approaches too), because so much of feminism and women’s studies is based on experience.
You can read more about my experience debating this in class and with myself here: http://youngfeministadventures.blogspot.com/2009/07/male-feminist.html
P.S. I actually used the same picture in my post, I chuckled a little when I saw it here too!
Dia @ at 3:26 pm, March 2nd, 2010
1) Why is baby killing and witch always in the same sentence even when the topic is about neither?
2) That’s pretty interesting. Though I don’t know any male feminists. I do know a guy who’s entirely too nice and chivarous to people who show him blatent disrespect.
I think it’s possible to support a movement regardless of your gender. Men came from women so why wouldn’t some have women’s best interest at heart? It would be easy to lump everybody together but things don’t work like that.
Kyle @ at 12:25 am, August 21st, 2010
I am a male feminist too, but I don’t think lust is sexist. I simply think women deserve to be treated equally. Lust is a natural instinct. Women have every right to lust or show their body as well as men.