Do you think men can be feminists?

[AVirginLitTheCandle]

This may sound like a stupid question but do you think men can be feminists?

I've always thought they can be but I perhaps some radical feminists will disagree with me.

See, along comes a man with great comedy timing to tell us we're wrong!

DrMorbius, assuming you're white, would you also go on a forum for black people discussing a race issue and tell them their argument was 'made up'. Or do you reserve your arrogance for women?

According to DrMorbius they can, and we must all defer to his Rational Rightness because he is a Man.

TheSparrowhawk you do realise the paradox of your statement in the context of my statement don't you?

Not a man, but.. isn't a feminist one who believes in equality, in spite of or because of their life experience? Seems unreasonable to exclude groups from a belief.

Oh dear. Dr Morbius, you've fallen at the first hurdle I think, because it doesn't look like you even read the thread and reflected on what had already been said before opining.

Rule one for would-be feminist men: LISTEN (or read). If you must weigh in, then try at least to acknowledge what the women present have said. Actually, bugger that, maybe I'm aiming too high - rule one should probably be: try to not start your treatise on how men belong in feminism by saying that what feminists are talking about is "made up". Seems self evident to me, but apparently not...

Unless you were on an elaborate double bluff? You were demonstrating how NOT to do it?

Nope, Dr, you'll have to enlighten me.

{Sarcastic slow clap for Morbius }

Very well done sir demonstrating precisely what many before you were describing.

Perfect, DrM

I don't even have to try and explain further what my views on self proclaimed feminist men are. You just demonstrated it succinctly

Most men do not want to be feminist in their thinking anyway. Those who do self declare as feminist men seem to, from what I've come across, enjoy telling other women what feminism should really be about and where they're going wrong.

Owen Jones at the Guardian self-identifies as a "feminist" but I'm not convinced he gets it either.

I agree with feminist-ally but not feminist.

Anyway feminism as it is ties itself up in so many knots when you take liberal vs radical views, 3rd wave, 4th wave, there are so many different arguments it's hard enough without mansplaining to deal with on top.

I mean men should be sympathetic to feminism but they will never get eg menopause or female body shaming etc.

PP above mentioned men's solidarity wrt calling other men out. They will turn a blind ete to other men's sexism in a way a feminist will not.

I do not call myself a feminist. Although judging by the responses on here I probably don't understand the definition of feminism. I believe in equality irrespective of age, gender, colour, beliefs, sexual orientation or physical!/mental condition.

True I have not personally experienced some of these although I have experienced racism, but I can still support people who suffer discrimination on these grounds. Does not being black/Christian etc, mean I can not support discrimination against blacks/Christians?? apparently it does on here

Can someone explain the definition of feminist please? Because I don't seem to understand.

Your posts are really incoherent DrMorbius. We've already explained why men can't be feminists, what is it you don't understand?

In fairness to DrMoribus the bar for "feminism" is now set so low in the mainstream I understand his confusion.

I've become more and more drawn to feminism in the last few years. I've tried to talk about it to my friends but they just don't want to know - they dismiss feminism as a bunch of bitter, angry women. I joined Mumnset today to discuss Feminism and to learn more about it. I've click on a couple of threads and it would seem my friends were right! This thread more than any others proves it!

Sorry you lot are awful!

OK Sparrow I looked at the definition of feminist and found the following The definition of feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes

Tell me why I can't advocate equality of the sexes?

Yes we are user! Run!

Ok, how would you advocate for female rape victims, what would you do DrMorbius?

"You lot". Nice.

No one is saying men can't be allies and support feminism. Although it seems to be quite rare. Robert Jenson is a good example.

It's like the difference between being a black activist and an anti-racism campaigner. I'm very anti racism but as a white woman would never call myself a black activist!

Hi UserWhoCouldntBeArsedToUseAPropername. You're completely right. Not immediately capitulating to men's definitions and demands does mean we're all horrible, bitter angry women. Maybe we should all go and make the good Dr a sammich to make up for our uppitiness?

Sorry you lot are awful!

Not very constructive, user. You can disagree without name calling. In what way are we awful? Because we're challenging someone whose contribution to the thread was "this is not a valid discussion to even be having"?

Advocating equality between the sexes is one definition of feminism. Another one is the liberation of women from the strictures of a patriarchal culture. The issue with the first definition is that it can lead people to glossing over, minimising or dismissing the analysis of what is it that is currently unequal between the sexes. Equality of opportunity isn't the same thing as equality of outcome, for example.

It's very easy to say "of course we should all be equal", but as a statement that's very anodyne, and it doesn't achieve much, and women here have a lot of experience of men saying this, but then when it comes to things actually changing, it can lead to frantic back pedalling or justification of why things are fine as they are.

Xenophile
I only joined about an hour ago and have just worked out how to change my name from user ...

To be honest you've just made feminism even less attractive to me. In just under an hour you've turned from keen to learn to embarrassed to call myself feminist.

I'll take sparrow's advice. You've nothing to offer and I'm truly scared if I engaged with you I'll end up like you.

Good luck Dr M! But to be honest if this is what feminism is do you really want to called one of them?

Your posts are really incoherent DrMorbius. We've already explained why men can't be feminists, what is it you don't understand?

Sparrowhawk you have set out your opinion why you think men can't be feminists.

Ah Lass how tedious to see you

Oh, ok, apparently you can't disagree without name calling, user or dolphin. If you don't think that an intelligent poster like Xeno has anything to offer you, then I don't think there's much more to be said, really.

In this case, I'm going to agree with Lass and clarify that it is an opinion and not a fact that men can't be feminists (I'm assuming there's some backstory with Sparrowhawk though, which I don't want to get drawninto) One can argue it both ways, but I think at best we can conclude that it is unlikely and difficult for men to be feminists, and we're very short on real world examples, but I wouldn't say that it's impossible.