If we want men to talk about men’s issues then we have to stop dressing them up in feminist clothing says Glen Poole, our international men’s movement editor.
Masculinity has been making headlines in the UK this week. The word on the street is that masculinity is in crisis and men won’t talk about it.
Actually, that’s not true, the word on the street is that the international sporting superstar David Beckham is retiring from football (or soccer if you prefer). This news has been trumpeted from news stands on street corners in every corner of the globe.
Meanwhile, journalists in the UK have been talking about masculinity because a self-declared “card-carrying feminist and single mother” happened to mention that it appears to be in crisis.
This isn’t any feminist, single mother by the way. This is Diane Abbot, Britain’s first black woman Member of Parliament who, as things stand, would be in charge of the nation’s Public Health if the Labour Party wins the next election.
So when Diane Abbot MP makes a speech about “masculinity in crisis” the nation’s political commentators listen – even if people on the street are more interested in an international football star retiring.
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According to Abbott “it’s all become a bit like the film Fight Club—the first rule of being a man in modern Britain is that you’re not allowed to talk about it”.
“Too many British men and boys who need the space and support to talk about manhood….from an early age….will remain silent,” she said.
While women have a life-affirming grassroots political movement, “our men have little movement politics to speak of (and) many British men have no authentic voice”.
It’s time, she said, to “move away from adversarial gender politics”.
“It’s a bit like the film Fight Club, the first rule of being a man is you’re not allowed to talk about it”
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Now I’m not generally a fan of Abbot’s left-wing, feminist perspectives on men’s issues but when a woman of her standing comes waving a white flag and calls truce in the Gender Wars, I’m happy to listen.
I turned off the sports report—as there is a limit to the number of interesting angles you can view David Beckham’s retirement from in one day—and took a sneak preview of Abbot’s speech to find out why she thinks we have a “crisis of masculinity”.
It turned out that Abbot is concerned about the crudely individualistic, homophobic, hyper-masculine, porn-obsessed, celebration of heartlessness fuelled by Viagra and Jack Daniels that passes for modern manhood in Britain these days.
Damn it! She lured me away from the football and into gender peace talks with a mention of Fight Club and then comes out with this? And to think I could have been listening to an in depth analysis of how Beckham’s different hairstyles affected his sporting performance instead.
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I’ll be honest with you , I was a bit annoyed and so was Tony Parsons, author of Man and Boy, who wrote in GQ:
“When Diane Abbott asserts that Britain is facing a crisis of masculinity, she is barking up the wrong trouser leg.
“The truth is exactly the opposite—men have never been more in touch with their emotions, and more honest about expressing them. Just because they are not crying in their lap of the Shadow Public Health Minister doesn’t mean they are not doing it.
“Men, I would suggest, have never been better than they are today. More involved in bringing up their children. More genuinely supportive of their partners. More willing to discuss their fears with those closest to them. Diane Abbott appears to know nothing about British men.”
Parsons, an ex-husband of the prominent feminist commentator Julie Burchill, concluded his GQ article by proposing that boxing should be made compulsory in all schools—which I translated to mean that he prefers Fight Club to feminism.
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For my part, I wrote a comment piece for the left-wing Guardian newspaper saying—in the spirit of Abbott’s proposed gender armistice—that while she is right to say that there aren’t enough men engaged in conversations about manhood, it is little wonder when modern British men are described in such negative terms as being hyper-masculine, homophobic, misogynistic and obsessed with pornography.
More men charged into the gender peace talks to wage war.
Ally Fogg wrote an open letter to Abbott warning against politicians who “unfairly and inaccurately portray modern young men and boys as violent, abusive, feral and destructive” and Amol Rajan, who used to be a Sports News Correspondent so probably prefers football to feminism, wrote in The Independent:
“Taking lectures from Abbott on masculinity is a bit like taking lectures from bin Laden on tall buildings”
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“Taking lectures from Abbott on masculinity is a bit like taking lectures from bin Laden on tall buildings. Can you imagine if a bloke gave a speech on a “crisis of femininity”? He’d be slaughtered. Whole queues of haters would form. Online, the abuse would be horrendous. And who do you think would lead the charge? That’s right—Diane Abbott.”
Then in the same newspaper, proving how independent The Independent tries to be, Matt Hill wrote:
“So what’s the answer to the malaise of the modern man? One word: feminism. This may sound odd; after all, we’re often told it’s the rise of women that has left us insecure and bewildered. But female empowerment isn’t a zero-sum game. The fact is, men have much more to gain from feminism than they have to lose – and it’s time we started talking about it.”
And with that I turned back to the sports reports and wondered whether I should watch Fight Club again this weekend—it’s been a while.
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If men like me who are obsessed by men’s issues get turned off by this conversation is it any wonder most men don’t talk about it?
The problem here isn’t that men won’t talk about gender. The problem is that people like Abbott say they want men to talk about gender issues when what they actually mean is that they want men to talk about gender issues from a feminist perspective.
But this is short-sighted approach because there are only two types of people who are really passionate about talking about feminism and that’s feminists and anti-feminists.
And this is why I’m passionate about people having non-feminist conversations about men’s issues because whilst feminism will rarely be as interesting to men as Fight Club or football, men’s issues can be.
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When you dismantle the left-wing, feminist context of Abbott’s speech you start to see we have some great content to work with. Check out these extracts:
“The problems we face as a country are huge. Many men are paying heavy costs, in shallow relationships, poor health and early death. In 2012, the Office for National Statistics gave average male life expectancy as 78.2 years and average female life expectancy as 82.3 years.
“Suicide, substance misuse, anti-social behaviour, “disappearing” from home, homelessness and a variety of behavioural problems are all markedly more common in men and boys. Men are also more likely to exhibit personality disorders.
“An analysis of the cancers that men and women ‘share’ by Cancer Research shows that men are 56% more likely to develop one of these cancers and 67% more likely to die.
“Men have measurably lower access to the social support of friends, relatives and community. Suicide is the single most common cause of death in men under 35. Credible evidence [suggests] that the suicide rate in England is linked to the current recession.
“The centrality of money in the lives of many men means that the loss of cultural certainty associated with unemployment can be more damaging for men than women.
“Can we make men’s issues as interesting as feminism and fight club?”
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“And our young boys are often behind in school, and increasingly have low self-esteem about their body image. Young men are failing to reach mature adulthood in massive numbers, mostly for lack of role-models and reasonable paths toward success.
“We have lots of boys who at an early age start to think of education as being not macho enough. Nearly one in five boys is being taught in a primary school without a single male teacher on the staff.”
“The radio silence around these issues cannot continue any longer.”
There are many issues highlighted in Abbott’s speech that even the staunchest anti-feminist would agree are problems for men and boys. There’s enough raw material there to make men’s issues as interesting as football and Fight Club, but you can’t do it by insisting that the conversation has to held within a feminist framework.
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Abbot says that “we must allow men and boys” to talk and then lays down the law by saying that those conversations must be about men and boys exploring “sensitivity, emotions, sexuality, boundaries, communication, and family life”.
What if those aren’t the conversations that men and boys want to have? If Men’s Rights Activists began laying down the law on what conversations women and girls should be allowed to have, you can imagine the response.
The irony in all of this is that getting men interested in men’s issues from a political perspective is exactly the same as getting people interested in black issues or women’s issues—as pioneers like Abbott have been doing for decades.
Getting people interested in men’s issues starts with a few positive advocates for men and boys—just like we began with a handful of positive advocates for women’s issues and black issues.
Once we have enough positive advocates in place all we need to do is inform men of all the inequality and disadvantage and discrimination they face as men and boys—just like we have done for women and black people.
“If we allow men and boys the space to talk about the issues men face then we will create a political movement”
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I know from experience that once men and boys get interested in the undeniable inequalities that men and boys face, they start to get really interested in finding political solutions to these personal problems.
As Diane Abbott said: “All the while, where the barren soil of inequality has sprung crucial and life-affirming grassroots politics for women, our men have little movement politics to speak of. Many British men have no authentic voice.”
Abbott may want to be careful what she wishes for. If we want to hear men’s authentic voices then show them the barren soil of inequalities that men and boys face and allow a crucial, life-affirming grassroots politics for men to spring up.
If we allow men and boys the space to talk about the issues men face then we will create a political movement—but it won’t be a movement that’s only filled with left-wing, feminist men. It will be as hairy and scary; as innovative and inspiring; as world-changing and life-affirming; as assertive and nurturing as men and boys in all our diversity authentically are.
This type of movement will be more interesting to men than feminism and it might even be more interesting than Fight Club and football.
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Image: Flickr/stroopsmma
Further Reading:
- The Crisis of Masculinity in Britain
- We’ve Got to Learn to Talk About Men International Men’s Movement
- It’s Time to Stop Discriminating About Men
Not sure if using conversations about rape is helpful in this discussion – merely because many men do talk about women and rape in the way that you have suggested.
Still – why attack her on flaws in her argument, wouldn’t it be more productive to extend on what she is saying, educate and use her speech as productive with possibilities. Why be so defensive? If the men in powerful positions are unwilling to speak about masculinity – why slam the women who dares to use her position to start a debate…
Not sure if using conversations about rape is helpful in this discussion – merely because many men do talk about women and rape in the way that you have suggested. And it’s also pointed out as wrong too isn’t it? But to tie it back to this. When it is pointed out as wrong to talk about rape in terms of what girls/women should be doing in terms of dress and travel does that mean that those people should be talking about rape at all? Of course not its a matter of how they are talking about it. Still –… Read more »
Danny, Absolutely agree!! “When it is pointed out as wrong to talk about rape in terms of what girls/women should be doing in terms of dress and travel does that mean that those people should be talking about rape at all? Of course not its a matter of how they are talking about it.” Yes, it’s HOW the media and people are talking about it, much like a common household term. It dilutes its meaning and severity. Lest we forget, it’s a form of violence. In my opinion, the topic should be handled responsibly and the word used sparingly. We… Read more »
A bit late into the discussion… But I would like to defend Abbott – it seems that she is getting much flak for daring to speak about masculinity, that she cares for boys and men and is prepared to think, discuss and speak about it. Shouldn’t we applaud her for daring to raise the issue of masculinity and for starting this discourse… Perhaps we should be wondering why a male politician has not started this discourse? Most of the comments on this thread appear to want to hear men’s voices on masculinity… but men in powerful positions are strangely silent…… Read more »
The flak comes from the way she is speaking about them. To make a somewhat similar comparison imagine someone that wants to have a conversation about rape….but talks about it in the sense of telling girls/women that they should be mindful of what they wear and how they travel at night. Yes its good that said person wants to talk about rape and wants to do something about it but there is a problem in how they talk about it. Same thing here. Yes its great that she wants to have the conversation but wanting to have that conversation doesn’t… Read more »
I think part of the problem is that the issues have become confused and along with them what the culture expects from men, and even the definition of what it means to be masculine. Certainly there is more to being a man than merely being a physical body of some strength, and there is a long list of manly virtues which have not one word to say about dominating women. Quite the contrary in fact. And those virtues are still valid but men have been told by the feminist culture that to express them is inherently sexist. In other words… Read more »
If I have to choose between the 3, I take Football 7 days a week and twice on Wednesdays.
FlyingKal,
Quiz Question & Food for Thought: What if a women in your life said “No. I want you to give up your manly pursuits and spend that time with me.”?
Speak or forever hold your piece. 😉
I normally come here only to throw rotten fruit, but this article is different. Beautiful, touching, profound.
Abbott is right, it is time for men to have a conversation about gender. But it also time for Abbot and others like her to stop screaming at men and boys with her feminist megaphone, so that we can have this conversation on our own terms.
Bravo!
I left a comment on that other article. I think it’s more useful here, actually. Apologies! Foucault, Adorno, Debourd, Said and even the earlier, post-colonial/postmodern Feminists all employed language-concepts from the history of Western Philosophy. It just speaks to the unseen and unexamined arrogance that Feminists have come to a place where they’ve hijacked what was once a class-based, activist community which saw rising the standard of living as the larger goal and made it into a rather insular, dogmatic community that too often appears to fight for the benefit of middle-class, white women at the absolute expense of the… Read more »
Nice article Glen.
I think the sort of thing you’re talking about is why so much of the conversation has moved online since that is a space that is free from the constraint that all dialogue must be from a feminist perspective. Controlling the discussion is impossible online, which explains the dramatic growth in the interest in men’s issues over the past few years.
Thanks Iain That’s a really good point – I touch on this here: “Pro-feminists will tend to control the context of the conversation, demanding that any discussion about men and gender must either focus on the problems men cause or explore how men can change to address the problems women face. “Anti-feminists tend to demand a platform to talk ‘at’ people about the problems men have and how these problems are caused by feminism (with some additional focus on the problems women cause for good measure). “It’s both an over-simplification of what happens and a handy distinction that you can… Read more »
The quote comes from this article by the way: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/weve-got-to-learn-to-talk-about-men-international-mens-movement/
This is akin to Ryerson’s Student Union claiming that in “conversations on gender, we must centre the voices of women”. How does this make sense when we are discussing the other gender? When I spoke with protesters at CAFE’s Janice Fiamengo, “What is Wrong with Modern Feminism?” event, I was told that I sound like a feminist. Some of us who advocate for awareness of men’s issues, and who openly discuss them may sound like they aren’t that far off from feminists, but it is not for you to label us as such. Allow us our voice, don’t tell us… Read more »
The problem here isn’t that men won’t talk about gender. The problem is that people like Abbott say they want men to talk about gender issues when what they actually mean is that they want men to talk about gender issues from a feminist perspective. Pretty much. Goes to show you what happens when you convince yourself that your brand and only your brand has all the solutions to all the problems and/or that all the solutions must be implemented under your brand or it is inherently anti-equality. But this is short-sighted approach because there are only two types of… Read more »
Thanks for that feedback, I enjoyed it
That said, thanks for this article, Glenn.
If feminists want men to speak up, they may have to brace themselves for the shocking fact that we may not actually be interesting in playing the game they want, and discussing masculinity in terms of concepts they use. Some might – some might not. Either is fine.
*Interested, not interesting -_-
Thanks for the thanks OirishM – glad you enjoyed the article
You’re too sweet, after I misspelled your name too! Sorry about that 🙂
It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it ,but evidently the kind of things Abbott is only interested in talking about is how much of a problem being a man is.
And just to make it clear, people give Abbott side-eye because for someone who’s capitalised on her minority status as an MP many times, she’s also been quite critical of other groups – let’s not forget her “white people play divide and conquer” tweet.
Thank the lord of masculinity for that, I thought Glen Poole had gone all Fathers Direct for a bit… Men and boys do need their own space and their own dialogue and the ground to allow the way in which masculinity has been shaped by feminism over forty years to emerge into sharp relief. That way, when masculinity is considered and thought about, by men, for men, an emerging sense of what it is to be a man and what it has been to grow as a man confined in the spaces defined by women, will take shape. On my… Read more »
Thanks Karen I always have time to hear your perspectives (even if we don’t always agree) as you are one of the leading voices in the world on men’s issues – thanks for the time you take to comment on my articles here and elsewhere – best – Glen
I had been losing respect for GMP as a men’s publication, but this was an excellent article. Bravo, Glen! In my experience feminists may say they want to hear from men and discuss men’s issues, but feminism just isn’t the place for men to have an honest discussion. On one end of the spectrum you have feminists who honestly do care about men, but their activism is still primarily centered around women and most of the benefits it provides to men are secondary (Patriarchy hurts men too!). Trying to re-center them around male issues is sort of derailing anyway… On… Read more »
Agreed. I like this comment very much:
“So yes, men need their own movement. For men, by men, and about men. One that neither feels the need to blindly submit to feminist ideology and view every issue through the lens of patriarchy theory, nor bases itself around opposition to feminism.”
Thank You
“For men, by men, and about men…..”
Be cautious that this type of mindset is why many women reject the feminist label. The exaggerated social justice meme of giving “voice” to specific groups by shutting out ideas that don’t follow suit is a recipe for stagnation and irrelevance.
Eh, I guess I just meant a group where men can gather and speak honestly about their problems and help each other, based on their own experiences and needs, not what others tell them they should be. There are already groups and forums for telling men how to be better feminist allies or talking about male issues (but almost all the issues are how to treat women with more respect or how to help solve women’s issues). Of course any group that gets insular and ends up with an “us versus the world” mindset is going to be problematic. Even… Read more »
Damn straight.
Its going to be a hard road when you simutaneously demand that men start doing their own work and holding them in bad faith if they don’t do it in a certain way (which usually involves reaching out to women oddly enough).
The problem here isn’t that men won’t talk about gender. The problem is that people like Abbott say they want men to talk about gender issues when what they actually mean is that they want men to talk about gender issues from a feminist perspective.
That sums it up in a nutshell.
When feminists insist that they want to work with men or that we should really be on the same team, what they’re essentially saying is that they’ll let us be on their team, so long as we play by their rules, and are content to be junior partners.
A wide variety of male groups and male voices both feminist and non-feminist would be good. Maybe those groups could talk to each other and see where the averages lie?
Thanks Archy My belief that people who think differently about men and boys need space to learn how to speak with each other: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/weve-got-to-learn-to-talk-about-men-international-mens-movement/ I also think there’s also a very strong need for non-feminists to speak with each other first and develop their own thinking My experience is that the best place to start finding agreeing is measurable objective inequalities – so stuff like the suicide rate or education performance or life expectancy – where we can agree a measured inequality – and I’d like to see non-feminists invest more time thinking about how to tackle those types of… Read more »
I’m very interested in this “measured inequality.” Surely there must be someone out there who has laid out these objective inequalities (suicide rate, education performance, life expectancy, etc). Because I haven’t really seen much yet in terms of framing concrete “men’s issues.”
(I chuckle here, because even my limited engagement with feminism recalls that the feminine is concrete, while the masculine is abstract. So are men’s issues abstract?)
The World Economic Forum produces a global gender equality league table – it’s actually a table of women’s inequality – however it takes four key measures, – health, wealth, power, education Men on average come on top on wealth and power, men do worse on health and in about 90 of the world’s leading economies, women are ahead on education There are league tables out there on suicide rates and life expectancy that show the inequality men experience – there’s also good data from World Health Organisation on the high percentage of men and boys who die of violent deaths… Read more »
Absolutely, men need to be able to have critical conversations about masculinity without worrying that a woman might blow up at them. The feminist movement is clearly focused on helping women, so perhaps it is better to just let that be, and let the men’s movement be a separate thing. However such a movement should still be friendly towards feminism. I don’t need to explain what it would mean when men’s rights activists and women’s rights activists become enemies. Feminists have done a lot of work on gender and masculinity already. Much of their literature is critical of masculinity and… Read more »
“Absolutely, men need to be able to have critical conversations about masculinity” No we don’t ” you have to remember the difference between actual men, and the various masculine role models/narratives/myths/stereotypes/norms/rules/etc” No we don’t We can talk about men’s issues in anyway we want to thank you very much – why are you dictating to me how I have to speak about being a man – STOP IT – who gave you permission to tell me how I have to think about my own human experience? If you want to talk about men in that way that’s fine – go… Read more »
So some feminists, including the GMP’s resident feminists, would argue that feminism is simply about removing gender as a constraint on self-determination, liberty and quality of life (broadly speaking). Assuming the most broad definition of feminism holds true, how could men have a conversation about gender equality independent of feminism? I can imagine such a movement’s tone and leadership would differ from a women’s feminist movement, but ultimately it would need to align in some form or fashion, no? Or do we simply believe feminism is something entirely different from what it claims to be?
“how could men have a conversation about gender equality independent of feminism?”
Erm, Hindus have managed for centuries to have conversations about God without any reference to Christianity whatsoever
What’s not to understand – feminism does not have a monopoly on the human mind – men can talk about gender through whatever framework we want to talk about it
ahhh…yes…religion is an apt comparison. I think you could find more than one religious sect that believes, truly, only they are capable of examining god and any true examination of god must be of them.
So goes feminism.
interesting…
I’m not surprised after what happened at SFU, but it does get tiring. Feminists have no problem inviting male voices into the conversation as long as they can control what they say.
We do not need a feminist fix. We do not need a feminist telling us what to do & how to think We do not need a feminist worrying about how modern men are affecting women – because that is exactly how it is coming accross – a feminist concerned about women. However, this oxygen she has given has been great. I hope it helps more men to understand just how badly they are being treated in today’s western world. I hope it helps them to talk to each other about these problems and how to solve these problems. And… Read more »
Isn’t there a larger point that neither men nor women are much better or worse off than they were five years ago? That all the screaming is just screaming, and they just want the war to be won with more bloodshed than the bloodless coup?
I don’t know if that is true – it’s mixed – there are general improving trends – but also gaps widen – and in some cases things go backward An example of improvement is the worldwide upward trend in life expectancy An example of gaps widening is the way that gaps between men and women at university get wider and wider An example of things going backwards would be rises in male suicide in the face of economic downturn What ‘s most interesting to me from an international perspective is developing our ability to understand and respond to the different… Read more »
“this oxygen she has given has been great” – spot on – whatever your perspective – pro-fem or anti-fem / left or right / everything in between — if you are genuinely concerened with improving the lives of men and boys then the fact that more people that usual are thinking about and talking about men and men’s issues is to be welcomed – when the debate is out there then we have the opportunity to shape the debate and get others interested and involved
CitymanMichael, Absolutely! “…we do need women as partners and as listeners.” 1. I changed my posture on this site and pose more questions, instead of telling men what I think. Although I will speak up when/if I see misunderstanding. (Most of the guys know I’m an odd-ball here.) 2. I’ve also challenged myself, not to condemn, criticize, and judge other’s ideas and opinions, but I expect the same respect in return. Even if my values clash with the good opinion of others. My hope is that more women put down their ‘battle axe’ and choose a posture of curiosity, respect,… Read more »
I’m curious about the political angle to all this. Whatever else she is, woman, feminist, mother, etc., she is also a professional politician. Surely Abbott’s comments have to be understood as the comments of someone who seeks votes, or as someone who wants to advance her political career in the future. If she were in the U.S., I would assume that her advisors put together a focus group of her constituents and discovered that this rhetoric “played well” with them. Probably some Clinton-esque triangulation going on here, some of that “I feel your pain” stuff. In political terms, it may… Read more »
Good points Bit of context Diane Abbott is something of an institution – she is practically politically immovable, as the UK’s first black, woman MP and the incumbent of a very safe constituency where you could put a Labour Party rosette on a pumpkin and people would vote for it – and in the 2010 when the majority of UK voters were swinging away from the Labour Party – she doubled her majority She is known to be a maverick and often goes against the party line and she has never had a top job in politics She stood for… Read more »
Glen, it doesn’t matter how accepted or not these positions are. Feminism, as a whole (in line with development over the last 30 years) has been an antagonistic process. Show me a politician than can put aside the rhetoric and we can talk. The current narrative means that criticizing the narrative (as a Labour rep) means losing that support if they can put a woman up who will run against you. If they can’t? you get an excuse. But the big piece is that individuals like Abbott is that she’s riding a wave and she’ll say and do whatever it… Read more »
Sure – any narrative on men’s issues is squeezed carefully into the existing narrative on gender/women’s issues – that’s the context – but the content varies hugely – if you look at the two speeches from last week by Abbott and Jon Cruddas – the content of these two sub-narratives on men’s issues is very, very different David Lammy – another black Labour MP – has a very different narrative again What you are pointing to is the difference between context and content – the content varies hugely from one MP to the next but the context generally stays the… Read more »
Thanks for the info. That puts it into perspective. My cynicism is foiled once again…. : – )
Excellent article by Glen Poole. As long as we insist of ideological screening of men, prior to entrance into the discussion, there will be no real discussion.
Thank you, Paul. Good to see you around these parts again.
Thanks Paul
If you were to place a finger on the problems Feminism is entangled with at this place in time, it would have to be the almost Jekyll/Hyde shadowboxing that the moment engages in to maintain their outward, coherent narrative as both a politically radical movement and a populist wave of support. I don’t have the time, ability or energy to engage in an un-funded study, but over time the question has reared itself back into my brain: what is preventing Feminism from being a “no-brainer” political question? We have 80% of the population of the United States supporting equality, but… Read more »
Roar of applause! Thank you Glen for saying it. Being told constantly we must bow to the sensibilities of women in general or feminists in particular to speak in our own voices about these issues is exhausting. Enough is enough!
Here’ s part of what gender equality means: men get to talk about their issues on their terms, not yours, and they get to say what they really think regardless of how it makes you feel. Otherwise, the only people being “silenced” are the men.
Thanks Dean