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.

I have never stated that ANY society is gender equal. The view I stated was that once all of the legal barriers to gender equality have been removed, and legal barriers to discrimination have been raised, a society is no longer, in my view, male supremacist in nature.

This is a very liberal view of what a supremacy is. It also isn't very well thought out - scratching the surface style thinking.

Male supremacy is a sex based social order. As there is no justification for the oppression of women for being of the female sex, gender had to be invented. Gender is male supremacy. Gender is the mechanism via which men are awarded superior status and girls and women inferior status. Gender is a hierarchy - men dominate, women are subjugated.

Gender AKA male supremacy is institutionalized but it is also entrenched in the private sphere. It is all pervasive. That is its force and power.

The only way to end male supremacy is to rid ourselves of gender. Only then will girls and women be liberated from sex oppression. Tinkering with MP ratios is not going to cut it. Changing laws is a good thing but that won't cut it either. Many of the things that harm girls and women are already illegal but they still happen (a lot) and they still subjugate girls and women.

We need a total mindshift. A total, global, mindshift. There are currently no countries which do not operate as male supremacist and which do not operate within male supremacy. Coming back to the original theme of the thread, men cannot be feminists whilst enjoying the fruits of current and historical global male supremacy.

It is tiresomely common for men to argue that society is not male supremacist or nearly not. Or could fairly easily be made not. This is the same argument as that of the Happy Hooker or "women do it too" or "not all men are like that" and all the other deeply misogynistic and pro male dominance blustering that makes feminists see how far men as a class are from relinquishing their unearned privilege and opening up their minds and eyes to what their oppression of girls and women actually is.

Sparrowhawk

I'm primarily interested in the house of commons since they are the primary influence over my life.

I believe the % split is currently 29/71 - if that was flipped would I be comfortable?

Provided the reversal occured as a result of entirely meritocratic selection, gender neutral reforms to the mechanisms of government, and free democratic choice, then yep - absolutely - I would be entirely happy.

My boss, and her boss, are both women. They both work harder than me. They are both better at their respective jobs than I would be. I like & respect them both, I would much rather work under them than many of the male bosses I've had - so, I have no issue with the people in positions of power and authority over parts of my life being female.

I didn't ask just about the UK parliament, I asked about the entire world. For women only two parliaments in the entire world are composed by a majority of their gender.

Also do you think the current balance in favour of men occurred due to entirely meritocratic selection?

Exactly Sparrowhawk. Do posters think that 71% of men just happened to be the best person for the role? That there are considerably smaller numbers of suitable women?

"Also do you think the current balance in favour of men occurred due to entirely meritocratic selection?"

Course it was. Best man for the job and all that..........

I would really like to hear what some of the men on here make of that speech. For me it's one of those "fundamental truth" moments. How, after reading it, could anyone think differently?

It was indeed a very powerful speech, but not a "fundamental truth" moment because it was a deeper explanation of my own view anyway.

I don't use porn or prostitutes. I don't subscribe to the fact that the odd porn star or prostitute who appears to be doing their stuff from free will as relevant. They are outliers and their actions should be discounted from the population set when understanding the population motives. Which from the speech seems to be poverty/homelessness and the lack of power that created that situation.This is broadly the reason I believed before I read the piece (with the exception of homelessness).

I might have found one!
(A man who can be a feminist, in case anyone's forgotten the title of the thread, I know that I have at times)
This fb comment was posted on a piece about The Man Who Has It All:

Dear other dudes reading this article,
You know that stereotype of women who frequently complain that men don't listen? Your response here is an example of why.
Just listen. Don't say, "But what about men?"
Is the article true? Are women held to extremely high and unrealistic expectations, and given ridiculous advice in order to meet said expectations?
Yes? Then just listen, acknowledge, and try to be conscious of when YOU are guilty of contributing.
Later on, feel free to complain about the unrealistic expectations or terrible assumptions made about men.
But not as a response. When you answer a complaint with a complaint, you are showing that you either didn't listen or don't care.
If you went to the police and said, "Someone tried to shoot me," would you want them to take an incident report, maybe stop the assailant? Or would you want them to say: "Sir, we get shot at every single day. This doesn't sound like a big deal...."?

www.upworthy.com/what-would-it-sound-like-if-men-got-the-lame-advice-we-give-to-working-moms?c=ufb5

The issue is that men are not the sole problem.Patriarchy is clung to by many women.Loads of em want to get married, look after kids, read cosmo, get asked out on dates, make their own porn and for men to find them 'hot'.Men can't halt the collapse of patriarchal culture. Women can.

See I don't think a man who was genuinely aware of his own privilege would label himself a feminist. Doing so comes across as presumptuous and egotistical to me.

He understands that men need to listen to women about the problems women face, rather than jump in with their opinions. So I think that guy would call himself a feminist ally.

That's the issue is it qwerty? Really? More of an issue than men raping 85000 with women in the UK every year?

Not sure where that 'with' came from. Ignore it.

What about all the men out there who want to get married, work, read Nuts, ask women out on dates, watch porn and call women 'hot'? Are they not an issue? Is it always women who are the problem?

So that's a reason for men to do nothing is it, qwerty? It's hardly surprising that both sexes are affected by thousands of years of cultural conditioning that women should be the sex and reproductive class, is it?

It's 50/50.

Thank you, DrMobius. A lone voice......but a thoughtful one.

What's 50/50?

"Provided the reversal occured as a result of entirely meritocratic selection, gender neutral reforms to the mechanisms of government, and free democratic choice, then yep - absolutely - I would be entirely happy."

This is yet more patriarchal thinking. And sloppy thinking.

The brass neck and blinkeredness of unearned male privilege in this post is astounding (although not uncommon).

RandomMale do you not see what is utterly outrageous in what you have posted? Do you not see how insulting it is to womankind to say "Provided the reversal occured as a result of entirely meritocratic selection, gender neutral reforms to the mechanisms of government, and free democratic choice..."

My irony meter not only exploded but went nuclear. It is so typical of a male perspective - you got to seize power, money, representation, etc through violence, exploitation, subjugation, oppression and utterly dishonest and base means. And now you loftily declare that you would be happy with a reversal only based on criteria that are currently an impossibility as a direct consequence of that seizing of power and violence, etc.

God it must be nice to be able to be so utterly clueless about sexual politics because you don't have to concern yourself with them due to you having been awarded a totally unearned position of superiority.

FFS

DrMorbius don't forget incest. Damage done to female children by male adults is a depressingly relevant factor - male sexual violence against girls and women before, during and after the actual prostitution must be included in any thoughtful analysis of what prostitution really is. As must be the idea of girls and women as the sex class.

"The issue is that men are not the sole problem.Patriarchy is clung to by many women.Loads of em want to get married, look after kids, read cosmo, get asked out on dates, make their own porn and for men to find them 'hot'.Men can't halt the collapse of patriarchal culture. Women can."

Qwerty, I see you are also posting from the position feminists call blinkered by male privilege. There is no depth of thought or analysis in the above post from you. You are trotting out the "women do it too" argument. There is no understanding of power, socialization, class, history, sexual politics, status quo, cultural hegemony, etc in your post. None.

Definitely not. In fact I'd be very weary of a man claiming to be one as I've had bad experiences in the past with them. Sure, they can be all allies of it, though.

DrMorbius don't forget incest actually Beach that part was a revelation when reading. Incest had never occurred to me. Although I must admit, sexual violence against women was something I had until recently given little thought. In fact before stumbling across MN a couple of years ago, I was your average 50 year old, now I understand privileged white male.

I like that quotation, zsazsa, and I love Man who has it all!

Well said, beachcomber. The panacea of an entirely gender neutral meritocratic selection really made me chuckle ( In a bitter, angry, feministy sort of way, of course). How are things done now, in that analysis? I thought we were in a post patriarchal world, and were already functioning in a meritocracy, but it's obviously one where men are just coincidentally better. Isn't that astonishing?

Beachcomber you said the ideal non-gendered society you want to see requires a total mindshift. A total, global, mindshift.

Qwerty raised the point women would have to buy into this too and got the , in my view , not particularly helpful ,reply that Qwerty, was
also posting from the position feminists call blinkered by male privilege. There is no depth of thought or analysis in the above post from you. You are trotting out the "women do it too" argument. There is no understanding of power, socialization, class, history, sexual politics, status quo, cultural hegemony, etc in your post. None

How do you propose a total, global, mindshift if there is not a buy in to it from both sexes?

Sorry, I know i keep coming in randomly but boys are sexually assaulted in family and institutional situations, which is also about patriarchal power and privilege.

I say this because my own perception that girls were more at risk (which they are) led me to fail to see the really obvious signs (in retrospect) which my DS was showing.

The statistics are something like 1 in 7 CSA victims are female; 1 in 4 are male.

I also think DS was taken less seriously because it was male-male. But then I (luckily) have no comparator. I just know i felt stupid for not seeing till he was telling me because I had thought DD would be more at risk.

cocoa

I hope your ds is ok

I always thought that my boys and girls were at equal risk as they were children

Now they are getting older i do worry about my daughter more

And since one of the boys has come out as Bi i worry about him as well!!!

And its purely male violence i am worried about...sexual or otherwise

Its more their size and them being able to defend themselves

Lass, I think it was a helpful response actually. It may have been a bit scathing but this is a feminist chat thread talking about men and feminism. Anyway, I'm just giving my opinion on an internet forum, my aim isn't particularly to help male posters who post sloppy anti-woman opinions. Having said that I think it is helpful for men to have the lack of feminist analysis in their posts pointed out to them by feminists on a feminist chat thread discussing men and feminism. If the tone ruffles their feathers I actually think that is a good thing. There aren't many places where women can bluntly say what their reaction is to such sloppy unfeminist thinking and IMO a feminist chat thread in a female dominated forum should most definitely be one of them.

Of course a global mindshift means a shift from women and men, girls and boys. Everyone must stop believing the lie that men are superior and women are inferior. Gender must be dismantled and consigned to history. Men must give up their supremacy, their unearned privilege, their exploitation of women, their status. They must stop taking more than their fair share of money, power, space, resources, etc. In order to do this, men as class, must honestly, candidly face up to what they do and have done to girls and women in the name of patriarchy. They must examine and analyse themselves, their behaviour, their violence.

I see none of this in qwerty's posts. I just hear the age old tedious whining of blaming women for their own oppression.

Men must own what they have they have created, the monster they have built. Whining that "women do it too" is the antithesis of that.