Men can't be feminists

[GuybrushThreepwoodMP]

This is what a poster has just said on another thread. This seems absolutely insane. Of course they can. Many are. More should be.

Thoughts?

Au contraire, IKnow, Dervel, Yonic and Buffy have been paragons of fairmindedness and good debate etiquette. So far, the only fly in the well-mannered and reasonable ointment of this particular thread is me.

yops if you feel I patronised you in any way I sincerely apologise. Reading back my responses I believe that came from being somewhat struck by the bizarre idea that challenging sexism is also somehow sexist.

I tried and failed to put forward the notion that it is probably better to stand for something rather than nothing. Even if you fuck it up on occasion, which I have and will no doubt continue to do so myself.

We are all heir to the background misogyny our society churns out, both men and women and this is better challenged collectively. Both internally and externally for that matter. I hope that clears up my position, and sorry again for patronising you.

I don't know if my posts were included in your "see this is why the rest of MN hates you" censure

It wasn't a "censure", I didn't say MN "hates you" , that's just trying to put me into a role I didn't assume to belittle my statement.

It was a statement in relation to a couple of threads that have popped up recently . I've been lurking for years, posted under various names, left, come back - I'm not a troll or troublemaker but, out of all the boards on MN, FWR is the hardest one for people to contribute to.

If you say something that is deemed to "not fit", you generally get a pretty rough ride on here and very often it's at an unwarranted level.

There was a lot of wide eyed "who us?" on the threads saying this, but it does happen, and it's quite demoralising for someone to take the (big) step to post something on here only to be dissected by "the regulars", very often for trifling reasons....

Seriously, IKnow, I am the only poster on here taking a sarky and patronising tone with Yops and I wouldn't do it if I didn't think he could take it with a huge double fisted helping of salt. I'm not an FWR regular here, I don't set the tone and I apologise to all the regulars here for lowering it. But if you don't like my posts, then why don't you just take it with me instead of lashing out at the whole board (again)?

Presumably because it's easier to slag off people seen as regulars, because we tend to agonise over how to be seen as being more accepting of the abuse? Even when it's not people who post regularly here who are doing it.

I think men can be feminists

Is that wrong?

Well, that escalated quickly

Dervel, we seem to each miss the other's point. I felt it would be patronising of me to assume offence on someone else's part. Allow me to give a quick example. A thread on MN last week about wolf-whistling. Something that sets my teeth on edge. But it was on AIBU, not FWR. So there was a mixed reaction from women as to how to handle it. Some hated it. Some found it benign. One poster said 'me at 20 - mortified. At 30 - rant, angry. At 40 - lol, still hot, still got it!'

So, a whole bunch of women with wildly varying reactions to something I find to be Neanderthal. So, do I dive in if I witness it? Is it any of my business? If so, when? All the time? Only when someone is visibly upset? Only when asked to? What if the woman tells me to ignore it/butt out? Genuine questions, not rhetorical.

Hi Yops, sarky pants here ! A genuine question deserves a genuine answer, so here's my best shot at it. I assume you're afraid of the following scenario: man says something revolting to or about a woman, you say "that was really sexist" and she says "oh, I don't mind/it's a compliment/oh, here comes the PC brigade/I don't need rescuing" or something like that and then you feel like an idiot making the wrong assumptions. Am I right?
The thing is, you, as a man, have a perfect right to find sexist behaviour sexist, even if it doesn't affect you. You can still say, "Well, I think that's really unprofessional" and that's your opinion. The worst that can happen is that people stop behaving like this in front of you because they know they'll be treated to an eyeroll enducing tirade. That's not the worst thing in the world, you know (I promise). And if you're lucky, other people will hear you and think "he's right, that was really sexist". And other women will know that you're someone they can speak to if they do need help. And men will be deprived of one more audience they can rely on to egg them on when they do this. Isn't it worth the risk?

Interesting pointsDWH. My question to you would be, would your advocacy for the NZ model for prostitution (as that's the example upon which you've drawn to illustrate your point) be founded infeminismor in another political position, say libertarianism?

Buffy, my answer would be that I was raised by a woman who was labelled a feminist by others around her, though she did not identify herself as one. Her daughter identified as a second wave feminist. They would have heated arguments with one another about various issues, like the attitude of business to women in the workplace and the role of government in womens lives and methods of supporting single mothers and working women. I was a young teen at the time so I just listened. They were often at loggerheads with one another. But what neither ever did was diminish the other by removing their opinion to another field of view because, as they were both women, it was not an easy option to 'boot out' the other from the same basic school of thought when one disagreed with what the other said.

I think liberal feminists who think sex work is empowering are wrong in their basic analysis of the power dynamics and wrong in setting so much store in individual choice without looking at context.

Yet you call them feminists, which is my point, not that their view of prostitution is better than yours. Men can be fully feminist in the minds of some but never for others. Between those extremes some extend an invitation of part/allied membership, a seat in the building but not the boardroom if you like. Lower down others can begrudgingly recognise that having men in feminism is good for the movement while simultaneously wishing they could be left out of it, vis,

If more men got on board with feminism properly, things might change a lot quicker (annoying, but true)

At the bottom of that grey zone of acceptance, before it tips outright into 'no they cant' thinking, men are relegated to silent positions for their bonus agency and assumed ability to better communicate to men. The thing that makes them useful to feminism at that level of acceptance is only their gender, not themselves. I would say that the conflicted nature of how men in feminism is viewed across the movement probably does considerable harm to it, to the extent it might be better if there was universal agreement, regardless if that were to have men as equal partners or to exclude them entirely.

But, in regards what you say about prostitution, I think what can be seen as 'choice' need not be polarised into either dis-empowerment or empowerment. One of the ways 'choisey choisey' (as I once saw it called here) feminism is made to sound more disengaged from reality is to popularise opinion that choice feminism is all about seeing any choice a woman makes as empowering, when all it really needs to be seen as is a choice, not empowering and not necessarily even a good choice. If liberal feminism was that wacked out on choice empowerment they would be trumpeting abortion on demand to term, but thats a very fringe opinion even in choice feminism.

I would say that the conflicted nature of how men in feminism is viewed across the movement probably does considerable harm to it, to the extent it might be better if there was universal agreement, regardless if that were to have men as equal partners or to exclude them entirely.

I disagree. It keeps men on their toes about their place, and makes "feminist men" a garden that weeds itself. What harm do you think it does?

Swan, good morning! I am out today, but wanted to reply before I left.

Yes, I could challenge something like that. In fact, I probably would, given the fact that it grinds my gears anyway. Because it is knob-headed first and foremost. The same way anyone shouting in the street is a knob-head.

But not all women are like you, or the regulars in here. Not all agree with your point of view on stuff like this. So what you are doing is asking me to uphold your FWR set of values and impose them on other people - men and women. And we know for a fact that some women really don't like feminism, or aspects of it. So what I would be doing is satisfying myself, satisfying feminists and not really caring what the woman involved thought.

If I imposed my personal views on a woman, and those views did not align feminist thinking, you'd jump on me pretty quickly. But because those views align with FWR, it's okay, apparently. That is where my own conflict lies.

In short, it's your (feminists') gig. I am happy for you to sort it out, and I won't stand in your way or hinder you. Anyway, back to the OP. I still think men can't be feminists as defined within MN FWR. I don't think they are wanted or needed.

Regarding how you might be regarded if you object to sexism - well, women have to deal with similar things, if not worse, if they challenge sexism too. Face up to it! Men don't have it worse when challenging sexism!

Delurking to say, Tops, if a woman in your presence was subject to sexist comments, and you objected, it's not her that you would be "imposing your views" on, but the speaker. What could be condescending would be addressing your comments to her, and/or trying to make it about how she must feel. You objection should only and always be about your objections to sexist behaviour.

It is different from a discussion like this - a discussion with women about how to conduct feminism. The scenario you describe is not a scenario in which women are engaged in discussions of how to conduct feminism. It is a scenario in which someone is behaving in a sexist way and of course people should object.

What are people's thoughts on men challenging women on sexist attitudes? And I'm talking attitudes that are negative to women.

I'm not talking in the context of feminist discourse but out in the field so to speak.

Buffy I've not seen men challenging sexism like that, but I have seen a fair amount of men standing up to sexism and gender stereotypes as they apply to their children. My husband probably wouldn't directly challenge anyone of sexism, he's not keen on confrontation, but he has stood up to his own dad when my FIL has scoffed at DS having long hair and playing with dolls and said 'they're for girls', and pointedly asked why something being 'for girls' means it's less worthy.

Buffy I have seen men challenging sexism. It's quite nice. :) But no, it doesn't happen very often. I have more often seen people sitting quietly and looking elsewhere.

Dervel I have not seen a man challenging a woman's sexist attitude. I myself (being a woman) have challenged other women's sexist attitude. I don't see why a man should not.

Well it depends what qualifies. In terms of friendship circles I've taken one chap aside and explained why rape jokes aren't funny, and perhaps a bad idea, but I didn't take him to task on it in front of friends.

It's tough to make something actually sink in that way. Also there might be occasions when in exclusively male company I've objected to casual objectification with a "guys aren't we better than this?", but I'm now at a point where that so rarely happens (quite possibly because people know I'll take exception to it) in front of me.

The only time I can recall being particularly aggressive over it was when I had friends over, a buddy of mine (female in this case), had kindly popped over with a lightbulb and was just putting it in. One of my male friends burst out how he was docking me man points for me letting a woman change a lightbulb.

I very angrily responded that when I was growing up my mother changed lightbulbs, assembled furniture and actually pretty much fucking everything practical so he could keep his man points and fuck off while doing it.

On a side note said female friend is an engineer and the most technically competent of the lot of us.

The occasions I've seen a man challenging sexism were quite public - in semi-informal professional gatherings where you didn't know everybody. Nonetheless they stood up to say that what people said were not right and they pointed out historical and current injustices.

I think if men are going to challenge sexism, they should do it in a low-key way, because otherwise it can indeed seem like "leaping to the rescue of a delicate, fair damsel" as was said above. A man accused of losing man points could just smile and say "I count my points a different way" and then thank the woman who'd fixed the lights.

He could even say "How many men does it take to change a light bulb? None, we get a woman to do it." Or maybe that's not funny.

My DP has had to challenge sexism in his mum and also in randoms who he's met on the street with the children. People are super keen to gender police toddlers ime and DP does a lot of our childcare so has had to field a lot of sexist crap. But I've never seen a man object to "banter". though some have had the grace to look sheepish about it.