Can a man truly be a feminist?

[OneLimeDuck]

Just for a little bit of context I have and do challenge people, well other men essentially, when they things that are sexist or do things that are inappropriate or could cause distress.
Today at work a female colleague was showing a new member of the department, also female, the procedure for a particular activity. This procedure requires me to give an authorisation for part of it.
On entering my office the longstanding colleague introduced me to her new colleague and we went through my part of the procedure.
As they left I overheard my longstanding colleague say to the new person "OneLimeDuck is one of the good guys, he is a feminist."

Reflecting on this I don't believe I am, I fact I don't think anyman can be.

My reasoning is as follows:

I can be aware of and know about the issues faced by women in society, such as having to deal with aggressive male behaviour or not having their contributions valued, etc.

I cannot however fully understand them as they are not my lived experience, so I accept that in reality I don't fully appreciate just how problematic things actually are.

An example is when listening to a woman making a point of argument about female righrs etc, or even reading one in a forum, I don't immediately 'get it' but have to think about it.

So, forget about me as an individual but do you agree with me that no man can truly be a feminist?

If you think a man can, or even could be, then what would it be about him that would,i your view, make him one?

Ironically the on,y men who come close don’t believe they are. IME the men who will step in and actually do something, respectfully and without taking away power, don’t call themselves feminists. The ones that do, want alllllll the praise, and often sex.

Example, I run with a group but don’t like running and chatting. Turned up once at group and it was only me and Bob, ex army, very gruff. Bob says that he knows I like to run solo but it’s really dodgy and dark and we’re running down a canal towpath so do I mind if he loops back a bit to check on me. I says thanks. He leaves me to run, I don’t see him. I run round a corner, dodgy drunk bloke starts talking to me, Bob appears. Gets between me and drunk bloke, very peaceably, we run past, Bob buggers off.

Bob supported me with the additional risk I faced, the harassment. And he did it without expecting anything, without bothering me, without macho shit, without making it weird and while respecting my boundaries.

Unsurprisingly, Bob has a wonderful wife and three great girls.

Men who quietly do the hard work of being allies while looking for no benefit from themselves, they get close.

Thank you for your response.

Your comment

"Men who quietly do the hard work of being allies while looking for no benefit from themselves, they get close."

This struck me as I remember a few years ago a whole host of people, including male politicians, being pictured wearing T-Shirts saying 'This is what a feminist looks like'.

I found it rather performative and thinking no, this is what someone wearing a t-shirt saying this is what a feminist looks like looks like.

Feminism is the radical idea that women are people.

Yes, I believe that men can be totally valid feminists in the general sense - recognising women as a full human beings and not being blind and deaf when something is not ok.
It's ok that you need to think about things and concepts which are new for you.

The more questionable part is when being a feminist becomes a man's identity. Men who is proud and declarative about being a feminist can easily slip to caring more about himself as feminist than about women's equality.

If women say it about you, take it as a shortcut for "not a complete jerk". It's nice to be recognised as a good person, but being a good person isn't done and over when being recognised, it's an everyday work.

You know I am conflicted. Certainly they can be allies to women and girls.

I'll take not being a complete jerk as a starting point, heaven knows there are enough of them around.

Women being people just seems so obvious to me that it seems too simple for that to make a man a feminist. Surely it is that wider understanding of the problems that even the best men can never truly understand. They can empathise for sure, but lacking a lived experience has, in my view, got to limit their understanding.

This is I guess my feeling, a man can be an ally but actually a feminist, that seems a leap.

I think a man that believes he holds feminist values has to not only "talk the talk" (easy) but also "walk the walk". It might not be in big ways but he shows it.
My husband would say he supports feminism (I agree) and was aware of my strong feminist principles from the moment he started dating me.
Just one example of many...when we married he was more than happy to add on to his family name (as did I) and did not bat an eyelid about my choice to retain the title of Ms.
Hand on heart - how many men would be happy to follow suit?

Yes, my husband is a Feminist. He recognises the shit that women have to put up with in our still patriarchal society and he is as outraged as I am about the situation of women in societies like Afghanistan, Saudi etc.

@Stelladid
What actions in his day-to-day life reflect that he upholds feminist values?

I agree. IME the type of man who consciously brands himself a “feminist” is doing it for his own reasons.

It would be easier to say which actions in his day to day life reflect that he doesn’t. He recognises the patriarchy and its various effects on women. He supports women and is seriously pissed off about the various harms to women. Is there anything specific you’d like to know?

Yup.

The short answer is yes.

They can't have the lived experience of a woman, but can align with feminist views.

It also pains me to have to say that not all feminists females share the same views especially right now in the current debates re GC and so on. They are still feminists whatever side of certain divides they fall on.

Yes, I think they can. I know men who's view are far more feminist than many women. I'm married to one. He's lovely 😊

They can be but I think 99% of the time if a man is loudly a feminist it’s entirely performative. The decent men rarely say outright they’re feminist, they just treat people with respect.

@Stelladid If you're married...did either of you name change/change title/add on etc?
How do you split work and household chores?

Yes, my husband is the same, and also the majority of men I’m lucky enough to count as my friends.

Im now trying to think of specific actions I do every day to prove my feminist credentials 🤣

I would say I know a few ‘feminist’ men, certainly in my family.

They quietly use their male privilege to support and empower women, and never assume dominance or superiority. They don’t display machismo when it comes to domesticity or raising children. They are happy to listen to, and live in their daughters’ world (my rugby player husband would patiently and happily play Barbies and have his nails painted with glitter when my dds were little!) And they are good role models to their sons when it comes to demonstrating respect toward women and women’s issues.

That to me, is how men practise feminism.

No name change. He does all the cooking as he’s better at it and I hate it. We each do our washing (after he shrunk some of my stuff when I was working and he was retired and I was still working) and we share the house work. We each have our own bank accounts and share the cost of household bills. We are both retired.

😂🤣😂🤣

@Stelladid I think there are many actions we can take as feminists to show we are challenging the patriarchy.

Do you watch porn?

Ooh, good question

Assuming this question is aimed at me.

No, I don't watch porn.

The obvious next question is have I watched porn and the answer to that is yes. I watched regularly until my just before mid 20s, stopped, relapsed in my just after mid 20s, stopping completely certainly by the time I was 30 probably by the time I was 29.

If I could edit my life then it is definitely something I would make me not have done.

I say this as another man, and on an individual level:
does it matter? It’s like I have a set of values and I strive to embody them. I fail sometimes, and sometimes I nail it. Some of those values align with and make me a fellow traveller to some strands of feminism. Maybe others less so, but equally I don’t want to be in the way of others on their own journeys.

If someone is on a trajectory of hate yeah we may end up at odds, but other than that live and let live. Best as I can define it is that feminism isn’t a movement predicated on hatred but liberation. It’s tough to find anything overtly wrong in that.

I’d like to leave you with a quotation that touches me on an emotional as well as intellectual level, which is rare: "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one." — Marcus Aurelius