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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminist men, tell me about your journey?

54 replies

DeepThinkingGirl · 16/03/2021 21:42

Hi,

I would like to ask feminist men about how they started learning about feminism and what was their journey like.

Especially those who couldn’t see the problems but started to see it after exposure to certain events or literature. What was it ?

Thanks

OP posts:
GNCQ · 16/03/2021 22:18

Not sure many men post on here

vimtosogood · 16/03/2021 22:22

It doesn't take a feminist or even a women to see the TRAs science denial for what it is.

DeepThinkingGirl · 16/03/2021 23:35

Ok if not many men will post I would like to know from fellow women if they knows from the men in their lives if they had a transformative moment in which some of them went from being against feminism to being at least more understanding of it.

Only because I’m trying to think of the best way to get men on board etc.

OP posts:
FamilyOfAliens · 16/03/2021 23:38

Men can’t be feminists.

ErrolTheDragon · 17/03/2021 00:16

It's pretty common for men to start to understand the need for feminism more and some become allies when they have daughters. The patriarchal route in a sense.Grin

DeepThinkingGirl · 17/03/2021 01:48

ErrolTheDragon oh wow Grin

OP posts:
FluffyHippo · 17/03/2021 06:07

@FamilyOfAliens

Men can’t be feminists.
So, presumably, by the same token, white people can't be anti-racists? And able-bodied people can't fight against disability discrimination? And heterosexuals can't challenge homophobia?

Get over yourself. It's exactly that kind of stupid sectarian thinking that's done so much harm to the feminist cause over the years.

FluffyHippo · 17/03/2021 06:09

And most men who understand and support feminism get that understanding and empathy from the same place they get everything that makes them decent individuals - their mothers.

nodogz · 17/03/2021 06:42

My husbands came from seeing how life has treated me (and him to some extent).

He has a bright mum and sisters and picked a self declared feminist for a wife. We were quite competitive with salaries and always proud of me earning more than him.

Struggled with early years of parenting. In theory wanted to coparent but was much easier to leave me to it as default parent adult.

When I got ill, he was shocked at how I was treated in the drs (he came with me to an appointment as he was so frustrated that I wasn't getting treatment). Saw I was Dismissed, spoken over - it was that different to his experience. And woke him up to a lot of what I was experiencing.

He made significant gains at work sharing my experience of balancing work and parenting with his team and customers. We share parenting/life admin now. He called out the golf days he gets invited to at work. He's currently trying to change his work culture. The pandemic has been very hard for him, he's realised how isolated he is without activities. Politically he's moved from very blue to bright red

He's come a long way and realised that although as a man he is favoured the system limits hims as well as me.

PurpleHoodie · 17/03/2021 08:43

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/dadsnet

They'll probably be more open to answering if you ask them over there.

Findwen · 17/03/2021 10:09

I'll answer, I am a man. If you are a journo, then I will not under any circumstances or inducements assist you outside this forum post.

During my first decade on this world, both of my parents influenced me. My father didn't actively hate women in terms of physical or verbal aggression - just thought very little of them (all women vapid, flighty e.t.c.), my mother was very much in the camp of "Men are the important ones and we should defer to them and keep quiet" school of thought. Outside my school teachers, who did not teach anything about equality (since they were teaching normal school topics - PSHE was "stranger danger") there was no other female influence on my life sisters/aunts/parents friends/neighbours -- nothing.

During my second decade on this world, I was often left entirely alone as my both my parents who worked long hours, my significantly older brother stopped during the job of parenting and spent time with his own friends. If the internet was around then, I would have probably become been looking at the incel culture.

Being alone so much meant that I watched a lot of TV, smart & competent women were few to be found.

By the time I left university I undoubtable held a lot of misogynist views. I did not actively hate women, I did not - even just in my own head - call women abusive names - I just had absorbed my parents viewpoint that women were weak both physically and emotionally and therefore not worthy of respect. Women were for sex and good conversation on topics that were unimportant. I would not have agreed with this statement at the time and would have been very angry at such an accusation, pointing out female friends I had as a teenager and that I worked fine under a female boss. However, how I felt about a woman in front of me who is clearly smart and capable did not change how I felt about women as a class.

I got married during my third decade to a wonderful, patient woman who put up with the odd misogynist comment. As I approached thirty, I decided I was going to read feminist sites to see if they had a point. In truth, I read them to confirm my view I had at the time that it was all bollocks and misandrist. Unfortunately the first places I read confirmed my bias, it was a site by where the posters were saying they did not trust any male to be around their children due to risk of sexual abuse -- even a older sibling was banned to have the barely younger brother sit on his lap and many other posters there agreed it was too dangerous. Fortunately I didn't stop there and read more... and more.

Over a period of perhaps three to five years my viewpoint changed entirely purely from reading sites and doing a lot of thinking. I don't think I am at the end of this change now over ten years in the making, I am sure my thinking will change further still. I would not describe myself as a feminist as FamilyOfAliens said I am not welcome to join the ranks. I have no intention of becoming an 'Ally' either and would reject the label if any feminist put on me for a variety of reasons. What I do though is teach both my sons (I have no daughters) about why women are oppressed, teach them the history of crapness women have had, stamp hard on any misogynist opinions they hear/repeat to me and I donate a small portion of my salary to womens causes and stand up for girls as a school governor.

You asked in a later post: "Only because I’m trying to think of the best way to get men on board etc." For me, it would have been really hard for you to have any success. I had learned from my parents and TV for much of my life that you (assuming you are a woman) - were unable to think rationally (Shoes ! Makeup ! Dresses ! Weddings ! Babies !) and see the bigger picture or you are simply exaggerating issues. So why should I have taken anything you said seriously ? A more aggressive approach would not only be dismissed but pushed me even further away.

In many ways, articles and forums are the best way for me - since I don't get to interrupt and speak over women. In fact perhaps the Relationships board here was been great impact, seeing how some men have treated their significant others is appalling and something I would simply not have believed is common.

I am out of time and need to start work to edit and refine this post more - apologies for poor grammar and spelling - I have never been great at either.

FamilyOfAliens · 17/03/2021 10:19

So, presumably, by the same token, white people can't be anti-racists? And able-bodied people can't fight against disability discrimination? And heterosexuals can't challenge homophobia?

No-one is saying people can’t do any of those things. What’s wrong with being an ally? It works well enough with the trans community.

Get over yourself. It's exactly that kind of stupid sectarian thinking that's done so much harm to the feminist cause over the years.

Anyone who tells a feminist to get over herself and allow men to decide who is a feminist and who isn’t demonstrates precisely why men can’t be feminists.

MissBarbary · 17/03/2021 10:33

Anyone who tells a feminist to get over herself and allow men to decide who is a feminist and who isn’t demonstrates precisely why men can’t be feminists

You are assuming FluffyHippo isn't a also a feminist and female.

FamilyOfAliens · 17/03/2021 10:54

@MissBarbary

Anyone who tells a feminist to get over herself and allow men to decide who is a feminist and who isn’t demonstrates precisely why men can’t be feminists

You are assuming FluffyHippo isn't a also a feminist and female.

No I haven’t made any assumptions about @FluffyHippo - only about the men they think should be included in feminism, aided by people like @FluffyHippo telling a feminist to get over herself and include them.
Beamur · 17/03/2021 10:56

I don't think men can be feminists either. I think they can 'get' it, they can include feminist thinking and values but ultimately, I think feminism is about women and for women. Other types of inclusion also exist, but shouldn't be called feminism if they're about other things.
But, that's just my view and I know it's not a universally held one. But I think words matter.
I can't speak for men generally, but my DH wouldn't call himself a feminist, but he lives happily alongside several - we strive for a balanced homelife and division of domestic labour, but he sees how some things affect me differently because of being female. I'll give you 2 examples. At work DH has never been asked to do admin type stuff by a male colleague. I have been repeatedly asked by one male colleague (not even in my team) to arrange meetings for him, find documents, etc. I'm an experienced specialist professional, not junior, not support staff. I'm pretty sure he's never asked any of his or my, male colleagues to do this. I'm at a loss why he keeps asking as I always refuseGrin
Second example. When my Mum was dying, I cared for her. More recently my MIL stayed with us and needed care. Did DH do it? Not really, both he and MIL preferred and expected me to. MIL and I are not close.
DH can see the disparity in how I am treated (even by him) but does not experience it. It's my struggle, it's my reason for feminism.
He can see it, support me and other women, but it doesn't happen to him.
DD has a male teacher who describes himself as a feminist. But he fails to see how he is perpetuating sexism. He addresses the boys by name, the girls are 'sweetheart' and 'love'. He's a nice bloke and a talented teacher, but can't see his own bias.

OnTheSeaShore · 17/03/2021 10:58

I don't agree that a man can be a feminist either. He can be a supporter or an ally. Both valid, both positive.

JustSpeculation · 17/03/2021 11:02

OK, I'll bite and out myself as a man.

I agree with @FamilyOfAliens that men can't be feminists. Or rather, shouldn't be feminists. I think politics is something you do, not just believe in. I see the centre of feminism as being the right of women to organise as a class to defend their own interests and rights. As they perceive them, not as others perceive them. So I can agree with feminists, I can support feminists and I can, on specific common issues, be an ally. But I do not describe myself as a feminist. Also, I notice that most of the men (and quite a lot of the women) I know who call themselves feminists seem to spend a lot of time telling women they are the wrong sort of feminist, particularly those who subscribe to the nonsensical gobbledegook of Intersectionalism. I think that shows a lack of self awareness.

I hate bullying and coercion. I hate being told what to do by people whose whole demeanour reeks of entitlement, whether of the left or the right. It sets my skin on edge and makes my teeth crawl. I was an anarchist in the 70s, reading Kropotkin, Herzen, Colin Ward, radicals like Tom Paine, bloody minded awkward socialists like Orwell and liberals like Mill and Berlin, anyone who wrote clearly and made sense, which ruled out a lot of people. I wanted to be a Marxist, but didn't understand why Marx's journalism (which I loved) didn't seem to reflect his political economy (which I found really tiresome). I tried to join the Communist Party at one point, but they wouldn't have me. So I went to the SWP, and I just didn't like them. I found them creepy, too fashionable and obsessive about fitting in and conforming. The kind of feminism I was exposed to at the time consisted of left wing women shouting at me in much the same way as the men did. The reason for this, of course, was that the other feminists were away on their own doing their feminism. I didn't realise that till later.

I left UK, after Thatcher was elected, in sheer depression, and ended up in an unashamedly authoritarian country with much more explicit gender roles than this country. I married my wife there, and we now have two sons and one (delightful) grandson. We were there for well over 20 years and came back in the late noughties. It was very clear to me there that the men were insulated from the real world by the services of women. I was considered deeply odd for doing ironing and cooking, but (and this is an important point) I was forgiven for being odd as I was a foreigner, and so had strange, incomprehensible foreign ways. Local men were not forgiven for transgressions. I had one friend who once shamefacedly admitted that he helped his wife wax her legs, but please don't tell anyone because he'd never live it down.

Then I came back here and I saw that the same is actually true in this country as well. We are just more hypocritical about it and disguise it better. You look at professional women power dressing their way through careers, and young women happily enjoying girls nights out and you think how much more advanced we are. But then families and babies and mortgages hit and you realise that, again, men are insulated from reality by the services of the women in their lives to a much greater extent than it appears.

Over the past ten years we have been busy. Mrs Speculation and I became home owners in our fifties, and have both had problems integrating into the UK career system in middle age. So I have not been political active very much over the past ten years, though I did join the Lib Dems in 2010, and resigned in disgust in 2018. Other than that my activism has mainly consisted in throwing darts at the superficiality and illogical excesses of the Grauniad, a paper I grew up with. But I have not voted Tory yet...though the way things are going I don't rule it out.

But what has fired me up was the reaction to JKR's essay last June. I have always been a fan, badgering my sons to finish each new episode of Harry Potter as they were published so that I could have a go, and I have always considered there is more profundity at Hogwarts than in Foucault (yes, I have tried. Really, I have tried). So I was not surprised by the quality of the essay she wrote. But the reactions were to me incomprehensible. Particularly my older son, who was casually dismissive ("Yes, I'm not saying she is an evil person, but she's clearly transphobic.". "How?" I asked, "Where is the transphobia?". I am still waiting for an answer, because it's not a conversation he's interested in having, and there are babies and mortgages and families in the way now.)

So I ended up here, lurking on this board, reading and watching a lot of the recommendations and links. I have been impressed by the clarity and astonishingly even temper of Dr Stock, the clarity and delightfully uneven temper of many others. I've been introduced to the TV of Graham Linehan, which I had never seen before, but love. I have grappled with the bland, inconsequential waffle of the Jammy Dodgers of this world. And the sheer intelligence of the discussion here is something I think is unmatched on any other public board I know of.

I read "Cynical theories", and it made complete sense to me. But the book which has impressed me most, and which more than anything else made me realise that you lot are, well, basically right, is "Invisible women" by Caroline Criado Perez. That sort of clear, careful laying out of the situation is very powerful. You can feel the anger there, but she never lets it obscure the material she is presenting.

I will continue lurking, and not posting much. When I post it will be for my own clarification, mainly. This post has been extensive because you asked about my journey and that, more or less, is what it has been.

MissBarbary · 17/03/2021 11:02

No I haven’t made any assumptions about@FluffyHippo- only about the men they think should be included in feminism, aided by people like@FluffyHippotelling a feminist to get over herself and include them

I'll reword it then- you are dictating to FluffyHippo that only your view point is correct and she should not challenge it. I'm fairly certain from her posting history FluffyHippo would consider herself a feminist.

ErrolTheDragon · 17/03/2021 11:06

It's perhaps clearer all round to call men 'feminist allies' to clarify that of course they can and should participate in promoting women's rights and liberties, but they shouldn't try to lead the movement, and they should be mindful that they may not fully understand the issues. The same thing applies to racism, disability rights etc - in all cases these there can be a tendency for a man, a white person or an able bodied person to speak over rather than supporting.

AntsInPenzance · 17/03/2021 11:14

I'm a man. I don't call myself a feminist because it's women who get to choose what that label means (obv women have different views on if a man can or not). I'm not insulted by the term feminist ally and don't understand why some men demand to be called feminists.

I've always been in favour of equality and equal pay, etc, but gained more knowledge of the patriachy and male privilege by reading this forum. I was also opposed to the trans stance on here when I first started reading, but have become more GC after reading posters on here.

I'll be honest, as someone left wing, the fact that GC people/organisations in the spotlight tend to be right-wing is a huge red flag for me. I find it uncomfortable to be aligned with the Daily Mail, etc.

Pan2 · 17/03/2021 11:22

Male.

  • having a very strong sense of justice
  • raised with 2 sisters
  • other feminist women in my life
  • reading a lot ( Marge Piercy Woman on the Edge of Time a biggie) in 1980s and 1990s esp.
-been around MN since 2006
  • work as trade union rep
  • work in CJS where discrimination is screamingly apparent.

And having a brain.

Very GC, and this has lost me a very dear friend of 30 years standing, and a shit load of problems at work.

Writersblock2 · 17/03/2021 11:25

I welcome the post, OP. I’m a female radical feminist and while I don’t believe men can be feminists I welcome them as allies. I have been trying to work with men as well as women to create something more cohesive in terms of a project for a while now but it’s really hard to get men on board, and many women won’t work with me if I include men in any way, shape or form. Happy to link up.

FamilyOfAliens · 17/03/2021 11:40

@MissBarbary

No I haven’t made any assumptions about*@FluffyHippo- only about the men they think should be included in feminism, aided by people like*@FluffyHippotelling a feminist to get over herself and include them

I'll reword it then- you are dictating to FluffyHippo that only your view point is correct and she should not challenge it. I'm fairly certain from her posting history FluffyHippo would consider herself a feminist.

No, I’m not dictating anything to anyone.

I posted that if men need people like @FluffyHippo to clear a path for them by telling feminists to get over themselves, in order that they can call themselves a feminists, that shows why they shouldn’t be feminists.

FamilyOfAliens · 17/03/2021 11:41

*Can’t be feminists

DeepThinkingGirl · 17/03/2021 11:41

Just to clarify, I meant “feminist allies”. I don’t mind the label I just meant to say supporter of feminism as opposed to seeing it as a threat.

I’m not a journalist either, I’m just new to the literature and have a brother wanting to discuss my new passion for feminism and I want to know the best way to gain their support

OP posts: