Glen Poole explains how the debate surrounding whether men can be feminists “really has nothing to do with your beliefs or your actions.”
The question of whether or not a man can be a feminist is a hot topic again, thanks to young male celebrities like John Legend, Ryan Gosling and John Hamm giving their name to the cause.
As a lapsed feminist myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that feminism is like religion, it has many different denominations and they don’t all agree with each other.
To some people asking if a man can be a feminist is as absurd as asking if a man can be a nun. To others it’s more like asking if a human can be religious. Of course anyone can be religious but you can’t simply join any religious denomination you feel like, because they all have different membership criteria.
Various feminists have tried to enforce different rules of entry to their particular brand of feminism over the decades. My personal favorite was the belief that you had to become a lesbian to be a real feminist because real feminists don’t sleep with the enemy! This belief spread to the pro-feminist men’s movement in the seventies and eighties with some men arguing that the only way to be a male feminist was to stop sleeping with women and become gay. Not surprisingly, some men were much more willing to embrace this particular rule of entry than others.
More recently—and less salaciously—as the political right has become more progressive and feminist, some left-wing feminists have begun to argue that you can’t be a feminist and right wing. The death of Margaret Thatcher this year (the only woman to serve as British Prime Minister) prompted another rematch of the “was she or wasn’t she a feminist icon” debate with no obvious winner.
The difference with the “can men be feminists” debate is that it has nothing to do with your beliefs or your actions and everything to do with whether or not you have balls. Some would say that an absence of testicles is an essential pre-requisite for wanting to become a male feminist, as a former feminist myself I’d have to say balls to that.
One of the key principles of feminism is that women shouldn’t be restricted by what they can or can’t do purely because of their sex; so saying that a man can’t go feminist because of his gonads can seem hypocritical.
Yet feminism isn’t just about theory, it’s also about the lived experience of being a woman and no man can ever tick that box. I have met many men like myself whose lived experience of trying to be a feminist has ultimately led them to become critics of feminism.
We tend to follow a common path. We are attracted to feminism because we believe that all humans are equal and that no-one should be held back in life because of things like their race, their sexuality of their sex.
Some men may turn away from feminism when we discover that there are some feminists who are not focused on sex equality but solely on women’s advancement. The more time we spend living and exploring the fascinating world of sex equality and gender, the more we see the problems and inequalities that men and boys face and find feminism may not be addressing those issues as quickly or directly as we need them to be.
Personally, I don’t mind what kind of genitals a feminist has. What I’m concerned about is whether men and boys issues are being addressed alongside the issues that women and girls face. With or without Ryan Gosling, that’s a job that’s too big for feminism to be left to tackle on its own. What I hope is that feminists and those concerned about the issues men and boys are facing can work together toward those goals.
Photo: AP/File
Archy says: June 10, 2013 at 12:18 am The fact we are asking that question makes me sit on the fence thinking yes AND no. The fact that men are so commonly referred to as Allies means there is “othering” going on, men are being treated as lesser or different. A lot of times I’ve seen men’s opinions on a topic get absolutely dismissed and in feminism I truly do believe most put far more weight into a woman’s opinion vs a man’s. Can men be feminists? Depends on the sect of feminism you refer to. Joanna and Heathers version?… Read more »
Yohan
>. Can men speak their mind without someone controlling their speech in feminism? Depends where…someplaces no, someplaces yes
Can you point me to a feminist area that doesn’t have strict controls on what men can and cant talk about?
@ Orchid
My comment – reply to Archy – was obviously cut off, and only the fragment with the text of Archy was published.
To answer your question:
I do not know any feminist website, where men can openly talk about problems concerning men – I do not know even one. – Either such comments are deleted and the user banned, or such comments are ridiculed and ignored. –
To speak about men’s rights in person in public is even more difficult, a certain speaker in the University of Toronto comes to my mind.
“Equality means equal. And yes, feminists want equality. Because then we would all be equal” quoting Joanna there. Not to be too melodramatic or provocative, but I can’t help but think a little bit of the Orwell quote in ‘Animal Farm’ that goes: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Marxism (like feminism, and many other ideologies) has also been accused of being a religion, or being LIKE a religion. Both ideologies aspire to equality, as they understand & define it (like many other divergent ideologies as well). But one must keep in mind that… Read more »
From what I can see men are allowed to be feminists, but its a supporting role and they are required to ironically play the part of sacrificing white knight who must use his strength to aid the females role as damsel in distress, and deny mens issues in a lot of areas. For example men are not allowed to speak about areas in which feminism is legislating against men and boys, or about it spreading misandry and are required to minimise womens role in abuse and support systems and laws that actively discriminate against men.
Despite the many varieties of feminist, there is one thing tht unites them all: a belief in patriarchy theory. With that as both foreground and background of feminism, it is much more attractive to me to advocate for males without that as my starting point. Just saying.
Agreed and that’s why it’s really important for non-feminists to be involved in tackling issues to do with sex and gender because feminism doesn’t have all the answers
” You can’t stop violence against all humans by only working to end violence against women and girls; you can’t prevent the damage done by unnecessary genital cutting if you only fight to end female genital mutilation for example. ” I agree our life’s (men and women) are entangled together, so the issues that effect women also hit men and vice versa. Focusing ONLY on one group, is a losing battle, while you can still solve some historical limitation, you will end up creating more limiting problems for both genders. About if men can be feminist, regardless what some feminist… Read more »
Good points and I agree, I don’t want people to be restricted by their sex or gender and so if a men wants to be a feminist let him be a feminist – is my perspective – and it’s not my club so I don’t get to make the rules!
It sounds divisive? Sorry, one can’t lose one’s gender; one is either male or female; if one is a feminist one is either a “male feminist” or a “female feminist” – those aren’t made up labels – the only bit about those labels that is a social construct is the feminist bit. I think there is something a little oedipal about men who identify themselves as feminist (you may take this as a slight, but bear in mind up until the nineties I considered myself to be a feminist) you want approval from a critical and absent matriarch and you’ll… Read more »
The fact we are asking that question makes me sit on the fence thinking yes AND no. The fact that men are so commonly referred to as Allies means there is “othering” going on, men are being treated as lesser or different. A lot of times I’ve seen men’s opinions on a topic get absolutely dismissed and in feminism I truly do believe most put far more weight into a woman’s opinion vs a man’s. Can men be feminists? Depends on the sect of feminism you refer to. Joanna and Heathers version? Yes, Jezebels? Maybe, Radfemhub? No. Can men speak… Read more »
“Take mansplaining for example, some of us men do it not with the intention to silence but to share knowledge. Yesterday I talked to someone who I know has quite a lot of knowledge on the topic but I still explained stuff (and he also does that too) because it’s a way of reinforcing our knowledge, sharing it, and sometimes we may not know 1 part of it and that fills it in.” I understand where you’re coming from there, and I’m glad you said that. I myself have seldom been accused of brevity (unless ‘verbose’ is a synonym for ‘brevity’)… Read more »
I don’t think there’s any way you can say that MOST feminists are more concerned with women’s equality than everyone’s equality, and I haven’t read Heather’s post above, so I may be repeating her here, but think about this: Even if feminists were more concerned with women’s equality, wouldn’t that ALWAYS mean that they simply want to be EQUAL – as opposed to “ahead” or “better”? I mean, to say that feminism is only about advancing women, and then to say that women only want women’s equality is an inherent contradiction. Equality means equal. And yes, feminists want equality. Because… Read more »
I agree with your comment Joanna. I don’t understand why it is such a problem for many men with feminism only deals with women rights. Just like white men can fight for black men rights, men can fight for women rights too.
I agree with your comment Joanna. I don’t understand why it is such a problem for many men with feminism only deals with women rights. Just like white men can fight for black men rights, men can fight for women rights too. It’s not that the notion of feminism only dealing with womens’ rights is a problem, it is that feminists frequently claim to be for gender equality. That implies a greater remit than merely women’s issues, it includes men’s and non-binary issues as well. The problem is not the notion of a women’s issues-only movement, it is that feminism… Read more »
“I don’t understand why it is such a problem for many men with feminism only deals with women rights.”
Because feminists are only concerned with women’s equality when women are disadvantaged, not when women are advantaged. That will ultimately leave women advantaged and lead to an unequal society.
To me its not that feminists are only concerned about women’s equality. To me its more like a lot of feminists believe in gender equality but the way the gender equality is to either only work on side of the equation in hopes that the other side balances itself out or by denying the existence of the other side entirely. (For example of the former look at how the child care situation is usually framed not as “men are conditioned away from parenting and women are conditioned into parenting” but as “women are conditioned into parenting and as a result… Read more »
Where, outside of the feminine products aisle, are women truly advantaged? In many legal areas the only advantage given to women (custody, child support, etc) are hold overs of patriarchal assumptions. ie; women should stay home and raise the children, men should be the bread winners. Wrong on both counts. We ARE trying to change those laws. Maternity leave? Ask a feminist – just about anybody will say that both parents should have at least 6 weeks (preferably longer) of paid leave, and the option for longer unpaid leave. Yes, domestic violence is a problem for men, too. So men,… Read more »
Jess > We ARE trying to change those laws. I’m aware that feminists groups rolled back shared parenting in Australia, oppose shared parenting in various other countries, that feminist jurisprudence in very influential in family law and that the presumption of maternal custody was introduced by a feminists …. Can you point me to feminist resources being put into changing these laws that make things more equitable for men? >Yes, domestic violence is a problem for men, too. So men, maybe you should start telling your peers to stop victim blaming the female domestic abuse and rape victims. Because you… Read more »
Just in schools alone I can mention teachers expecting girls to be smarter than boys, the same assignment being judged better if it’s got a girls name on it, girls being diciplined more leniently and generally getting various types of encouragment aimed specifically at them.
Have you looked at the gender gap in higher education? It’s not there by an act of God.
Jess says: June 10, 2013 at 11:37 am Where, outside of the feminine products aisle, are women truly advantaged? —– Yes, at least in my native country within EU, women retire with 60, and men with 65, despite women live longer than men. To have equality, women however receive the same national retirement allowance despite working 5 years less. As men die earlier they enjoy retirement for only about 10 years but women for 20 years, the fund for retirement shows a surplus for men and a deficit for women – therefore money is taken from the fund for men… Read more »
Because feminists are only concerned with women’s equality when women are disadvantaged, not when women are advantaged. That will ultimately leave women advantaged and lead to an unequal society.
succinctly put, excellent point. im surprised that others can not see this.
i was biting my tongue from yesterday as i didnt want to type paragraphs of text on this or glen’s recent other article.
“Even if feminists were more concerned with women’s equality, wouldn’t that ALWAYS mean that they simply want to be EQUAL – as opposed to “ahead” or “better”? I mean, to say that feminism is only about advancing women, and then to say that women only want women’s equality is an inherent contradiction.” Depends how much though. I’ll use numbers for this explanation which has no real world comparison since the world is super complex. Women start at 60, men at 80. Next generation through efforts of feminism we’ve given 20 points to women, 5 to men so w80 m85. Next… Read more »
“I don’t understand why it is such a problem for many men with feminism only deals with women rights” I don’t think people do have a problem a problem with feminism only dealing with women’s issues (rights, equality etc) in principle — I think people would be quite happy for feminism to operate in that way BUT they expect there to be space for people to deal with men’s issues and for people to approach all issues from a non-feminist perspective if they want to My experience is that people who care deeply about equality and are working to address… Read more »
I don’t think people do have a problem a problem with feminism only dealing with women’s issues (rights, equality etc) in principle — I think people would be quite happy for feminism to operate in that way BUT they expect there to be space for people to deal with men’s issues and for people to approach all issues from a non-feminist perspective if they want to. Exactly. The fact that feminism looks mainly at women’s issues doesn’t bother me one bit. What does bother me is that this moveent that looks mainly at women’s issues also bills itself as the… Read more »
I’d agree that there is limitation and flaw in the feminist movement in addressing gender issues FOR men, as it has by tradition and design been a women’s movement. Is it possible that the reason feminism wishes to retain it’s “equality for everyone” card is that the efforts of men’s movements are often mired in misogyny and dismantling feminisms substantial gains toward actual equality? I’m an “equality for everyone” feminist. I’d love to see equal parental leave, gender-blind custody and alimony considerations, and freedom from the culture of masculinity. I don’t know what it’s like to be a guy in… Read more »
Is it possible that the reason feminism wishes to retain it’s “equality for everyone” card is that the efforts of men’s movements are often mired in misogyny and dismantling feminisms substantial gains toward actual equality? If that were the case then wouldn’t feminism still be at least be open to those that may not ID as feminist but still want to have civil conversation? But I’d fear being laughed out of the equality board room by identifying as a men’s rights activist. Its not like that would be the first time someone would be have to face down fear over… Read more »
>I mean, to say that feminism is only about advancing women, and then to say that women only want women’s equality is an inherent contradiction. The way it works is this. Men and women both have areas where there is inequality, feminism works only on the areas where women have inequality that does not privilege them, the logical outcome of taking away all womens inequalities and replacing them with privileges and / or discrimination against men it fix the inequality and leaving the preexisting female privileges in place while denying their existence, the logical outcome is supremacy. If feminism was… Read more »
That only really works if everything really just boils down to a single axis. In reality there are different issues faced by men and women, dealing with the later won’t automatically deal with the former. That combined with the realization that despite their claims feminism is about the second kind of issues makes it clear that there is need for more than feminism in the gender issues discourse.
Fixing borked blockquote: Joanna: Even if feminists were more concerned with women’s equality, wouldn’t that ALWAYS mean that they simply want to be EQUAL – as opposed to “ahead” or “better”? I mean, to say that feminism is only about advancing women, and then to say that women only want women’s equality is an inherent contradiction. Equality means equal. Now, if you had read my comment directly above yours you’d see that that’s highly dependent on how one define “equality” or even how one define “means”. If one posits that in some cases unequal actually means equal then there is… Read more »
“Equality means equal. And yes, feminists want equality. Because then we would all be equal.” Being equal means to be the same as, or as great as… Feminism isn’t trying to make women as great as or the same as men. What they are trying to do is bring men down and women up to a similar point. If they were truly fighting for equality, they would stop looking for ways to bring men down and look for ways to raise women up to the same level. But expecting men to lower their social status to raise up or match… Read more »
I don’t know about most as I don’t keep a tally of all feminists, but here is an example of how it looks not fighting for gender equality, but for women’s equality: World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index: Almost every indicator that show an advantage for women are capped to 1. For instance if the female to male ratio for enrolment in tertiary edcation is 1.41 then WEF state that this indicator has a score of 1. There seem to be a couple of exceptions, one of them is life expectancy which is capped at 1.06 and female to… Read more »
So then… the short answer is “no.”
No, the short answer is “it depends who you ask”
I think a better answer would be “It depends on your goals” If your goal is to seek actual gender equality, and acknowledge that men and women have unique issues that need to be addressed, then yes a man can be a feminist. More importantly, a men’s rights advocate can be a feminist, and a feminist can be a men’s rights advocate if this is their goal. There is no need to assume we need one movement fighting the issues of men and women. If we did this we would eventually split and become polarized as we currently are. There… Read more »
And this is exactly why I ask the question… in my experience, women give each other far more leeway to answer the question of what’s “equal” than they do men. GMP is the most feminist-friendly site I visit, and I regularly see men who appear to be making fair and balanced arguments on gender issues get shot down and silenced by female commenters. I don’t have a problem with women fighting for women’s issues. I don’t even care if they choose to do it in their own space away from men. But if men sit back and do nothing while… Read more »
Right well, let’s just correct a few rather misleading generalisations here. If you’re going to claim feminism is like a religion, I’d really like to see something to back that up. It’s an incendiary claim which serves no purpose in this article, except to ignite the ire of feminists who read it. Either that, or provide an echo chamber for the anti-feminists who read it. It doesn’t serve to help you answer the question you pose. You claim that “most feminists” aren’t fighting for gender equality, but for “women’s equality.” Again, another very incendiary claim which you provide absolutely nothing… Read more »
I think when he compared feminism to religion he just meant that there are a lot of different groups and organizations that call themselves feminists but they are often quite different from each other. Just like the label “Christian” includes Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and so on. I didn’t see anything explicitly negative in this comparison. So how are feminists addressing men and boys’ issues? In my experience, feminists, including male feminists are primarily concerned with women’s issues and how men can help with them and any benefit to men is either secondary (Patriarchy hurts men too!) or related to “femme-phobia”… Read more »
I think when he said feminism is like a religion he merely meant it was composed of competing sects rather than being one thing. I think one of the problems is if two feminists disagree then the one who has testicles is deemed to have the less valid feminist interpretation, which means “feminist” is not a useful label for a man to have even if he does believe in gender equality. If two feminists disagree and neither have testicles then all well and good and they can fight for the validity of their differing views on a level playing field,… Read more »
Thanks Joseph Really great comments. You highlight parental leave which is a perfect example Left-wing pro-feminist fatherhood advocates describe the parental leave rights introduced by feminist politicians in the UK as some of the most unequal anywhere in the world That is a perfect example of feminists in action concerning themselves with women’s equality, not gender equality Interestingly, the right-wing instinct has been to keep parental leave to a minimum but to say if we must have it then it should be equal This is a perfect real-life example of feminists fighting against gender equal legislation. I and others were… Read more »
Hi Heather I didn’t say “feminism is like A religion” — I said “feminism is like religion”— you’ve added a word and changed the meaning — I’m just saying that feminism, like religion, is diverse It is my experience after years of fighting for equality for men and boys that most feminist aren’t fighting for gender equality, the classic illustration is the way the WEF league tables are calibrated which reflects, in my experience, how most feminists in modern economies have been tackling gender equality for decades You say “The lesbian separatist movement was never as popular as this article… Read more »
>You claim that “most feminists” aren’t fighting for gender equality, but for “women’s equality.” Again, another very incendiary claim which you provide absolutely nothing to back up. The total absence of feminist programs and funding allocation for mens issues and exclusion and censorship of mens issues from every feminist area I can think of backs this up. Of course I am open to being shown feminist funding allocation, program or area where mens issues are allowed to be discussed freely, but the closest I’ve seen to feminism dealing with mens issues is paternity leave, which is really about womens equality… Read more »
… but the closest I’ve seen to feminism dealing with mens issues is paternity leave, which is really about womens equality… as demonstrated by this article In Norway 97% of fathers take daddy leave. The expectations are high, but is it a panacea for gender equality? As a feminist family researcher from Norway, doing research on egalitarian men who worked part time and shared paid work and care, I often find myself trying to dissuade other family researchers and policymakers, both at home and abroad, from the high hopes they place in this particular policy measure as a tool of… Read more »