At last! A male feminist...

[Scarletohello]

This kind of thing is just so rare I felt I had to share it. Curious to know what you think of it. He certainly seems genuine...

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/being-a-feminist-is-a-nobrainer-for-me--why-cant-it-be-for-all-men-9753410.html

No dig.
Statement of fact.

Strange thread.

I feel mildy, not sure what the word is. Guilty? Uncomfortable? Certainly aware of. Many things. Being white, being born into relative wealth and opportunity, the british empire, loads of things. Not that I walk around with sackcloth and ashes but I am aware of it and that I am advantaged just entirely by luck and that makes me feel, guilty?

This is one of the big reasons people give to charities isn't it? If no-one felt these feelings no-one would try to salve their conscience by giving money to help. It's a well known mechanism isn't it?

I also have some things in which I am not privileged, about these things I feel I have had bad luck. And maybe try and improve things for others who share those things with me.

I certainly don't have a tally and offset the +'s against the -'s. That would be weird, TBH. I can't imagine having the sort of mind that would make me look at something like this, that way

Oh just seen that. Of course morals aren't objective. Blimey

No. Morals aren't objective. How on earth could they be?

Some.morals are widely accepted. But that isn't the same thing.

Guilt thing - me and a woman colleague set up a rolling group for 18-25 yo men in North Manchester who, by any measure were 'disenfranchised' from this sort of debate. I'd posted about it at the time. It was about VAG and women. IF we commenced with 'feel bad about about yourselves' we would rightly have been told to f-off.
So the writer had limited word space. He could have been a bit more convincing in that space afforded.

Morals aren't objective at all!

From experience most of my German friends feel the same way Pacific, and, like you, it doesn't take centre stage in their lives, but it does inform their thinking about a lot of things. I agree with others, there was no dig at all.

He indicates it should be a universal male experience.

I feel guilt at being part of the gender that carries out so much harm to women. Not sure whether it is a personal guilt or a class guilt, but it's there nonetheless.

Of course I feel guilty about a huge number of things other than my white, male privilege, but that says more about me as a person than my physiology does!

he doesn't actually say the word "guilty", he talks about feeling ashamed to be a man:

"In the current climate, I frequently feel ashamed to be a man, and I hope my other male friends can say the same. It is so often called a "privilege" to be a member of the male sex. It doesn't feel like a privilege; more often it feels like something for which to apologise. For any man who realises that life will drastically improve if women are treated equally and men are not pilloried for helping, join me by signing up to HeForShe."

(not sure that simply signing up to HeForShe alone will assuage that guilt tbh)

No, I agree 'guilt' is the wrong word, but I am not sure what the right one is?

Morals are one of the least objective values around.

Male defensiveness of their privilege or the denial that that privilege exists is real however, so, on balance I welcome somebody writing as the author of the Indipendent piece did.

And thanks for getting where I was coming from with me clumsy analogy. or is it metaphor?

I'm not going to get sucked into this, as it would amount to a super-derail, with the locomotive upside down and wagons everywhere. But as a starting point, would you not agree that murder and rape are objectively wrong rather than a matter of opinion ("Subjective, adjective, based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions")?

Pretty much every theory of morality that has ever been advanced (deontological systems, Kant's categorical imperative, consequentialism, the current fashion, virtue theory (though I don't really understand it)) assert that certain actions are definitively right or wrong.

Pacificdogwood, apologies if I took offence unnecessarily. I always feel a bit on the defensive for some reason

I don't know now about 'ashamed' either tbh?

"Uncomfortable aware" maybe?
Not elegant but more accurate IMO.

thedancingbear

Anybody else really hate that overly cute and snappy title "HeForShe" ?

Yes, I do, AF, it's grammatically wrong

Hate is a strong word...but still pretty at it.

i suppose it looks good on a hashtag, AF.

Activism.

two of the four daily irritations are a result of religion.

It makes me feel patronised. I may be unreasonable in that viewpoint. I think a better title should not have been out of reach of such clever people though.

I know. I get the accessibility of a snappy hashtag. But it sets my teeth on edge.