"Male Feminists": C-o-D

Paul had to pretend to be gay for 2 weeks because no one would believe that a straight man could possibly be interested either in feminism or promoting female bands.

The idea that males can't be feminist comes from a twisted and incorrect view of what feminism even is.

Can't believe acting as a male feminist will lead to getting some love action. Don't need to anyway, all the hateful misogonistic arseholes I've come across all get laid none-stop.
What's up wit dat?

(mark s = ironic reactionary)

men who call themselves feminists just to get laid are so obvious. do they really think they are convincing? i've never fallen for that bollocks.

But then again, I'm so confused and feeling wierd right now, I could change my mind any second. Hoorah for fickle gurls!

www.ecofem.org

this is also true for women.

Tim, does this apply to women too?

The semi-official usage of the term "male feminist" has tended to refer to men who actually *are* performing a specific function within feminism - which is promoting feminist ideas among men and masculine spheres, traditionally the audience most resistant to feminism (surprise surprise). There's another name for this which escapes me right now - "Exit Masculinity"? I think said usage is correct, as such a lifestyle can be considered to be justifiably distinct from the mere acknowledgement of women's basic equality - already a cornerstone of liberal democratic discourse - as well as being a role within the feminist movement that is necessarily limited to males.

(PS. I'm aware that some men might quite innocently use the term "male feminist" for no other reason than that it seems to apply to them, and harbour no ill will towards such types)

damn, academic cultural studies be overflowing with crepey male feminists.

"Cournos does not produce a modernist form to accompany his modernist notion of a riven, mobile subjectivity. No more did Lewis* explore the joint potential of a confidently performative female sexuality and modernist form. Few if any did. Jessica Dismorr's work provides a final striking sense of a possibility among these lines however..."

*serial philanderer and shit, claimed to have killed baby

basically nobody in this guy's field of study explored the confidently performative etc woman that he wants them to, but that won't stop him writing about what might've been if only they'd been him.

The only guys I would say are worthy of the name "male feminists" are those who actually organise or participate in feminist campaigns or consciousness-raising groups (if they still exist?) [...] but while striving not to be chauvanistic or mysoginistic is commendable, it's what we should all be doing, and doesn't need to be rewarded with such a pompous self-categorisation.

I take issue with this for the same reason that Josh did six years ago - the personal is political, right? Throw in a sort of decentralized, sort of poststructuralist understanding of power and social change: each person is carrying around some measure of participation in oppression, power is diffused, and change is going to happen through the aggregation of changes in the way individuals talk and act to each other.

Feminism in general is not necessarily about "campaigns or consciousness-raising groups" - both still exist (CR more sorta, it's a different animal now), and there are tons of healthy campaigns for this or that, depending on what particular feminism you endorse. But there's a great diversity of these and anyway I think it's possible to be a feminist without participating in mass action. Arguably, the very nature of third-wave feminism is that there <i>aren't</i> mass actions to participate in (on the scale of second-wave national political movements, ERA etc) b/c a richer understanding of the complexity of identity and oppression has revealed the problematic nature of giant consensus. (A different reading is that the third wave just hasn't "crested," that is, at some hypothetical future point it will reach the same level of cohesive bigness as the second-wave. In the meantime, one can be a feminist at the scale of one's circle of friends, one's work environment, one's parents and children, etc etc...

Short answer: I sure hope men can be feminists, otherwise my women's studies degree starts to look sort of silly! I think "Male Feminist" as a term is awkward at best and retrograde at worst, since it reifies maleness as a category (I kind of don't want "male" in front of anything!) and yes, calls attention to the males in the group, like they should get some sort of special prize or something. We don't want any prizes, thanks. Nobody here but us feminists.

^

where the titties at?

nicely said, Doctor C

http://www.caebuttons.com/images/products/feminist%20tshirt.jpg

i also have one of those, but not a ringer though. well done.

I got beaten up at school for wearing a Men Against Sexism badge in 1980. Well actually it was for wearing a Rock against Racism badge but I was wearing the MAS badge as well (and a badge that said 'Co-operation not Competititon' - I really had all the bases covered).

The best of Marc Loi : Facebook Feminist

"For the sake of feminism, and the peace of this group, I'll stop."

I will be quoting that a lot from now on.

When he was a teenager Robert Crumb described himself as an 'ardent feminist'

I am gobsmacked to see this - I can't think of anyone less likely. Is it true?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/sevenxviii/bythewaythatwasntmehittingonyouoran.jpg

We already covered this topic in this thread:

Men wot pretend to be all sympathetic to women's needs - classic or dud

U're only doin it to get a shag mate. At least own up.

this thread is older than that thread

the personal *is* political, right? Throw in a sort of decentralized, sort of poststructuralist understanding of power and social change: each person is carrying around some measure of participation in oppression, power is diffused, and change is going to happen through the aggregation of changes in the way individuals talk and act to each other.

schyeah right

previous poster clearly well on his way to accomplishing all kinds of positive things in the world

yr comment is the point where foucault meets the libertarian right. i can't off the top of my head think of any real social changes that have taken place because everyone was nicer to each other on an individual basis. if you applied this "decentralized, sort of poststructuralist understanding of power and social change" to any other realm of politics -- ie workers' rights, ie voters' rights, ie um the civil rights movement -- it'd sound ridiculous, so why is it so different for chicks?

I think "Male Feminist" as a term is awkward at best and retrograde at worst, since it reifies maleness as a category (I kind of don't want "male" in front of anything!) and yes, calls attention to the males in the group, like they should get some sort of special prize or something. We don't want any prizes, thanks. Nobody here but us feminists.

Why not choose 'gender equality-ist'?

clue: crypto-tory enrique is as usual frantically third-waying here between his much-bruited nostalgia for a "real actual left" (the imaginary of his own politics = leftish sorta, tho he's not old enuff to remember how this worked out in practice) and his right to be corrosively cynical and dickish to ppl on ilx (the actual of his politics = reactionary and destructive compensation for not having the guts to bother with any political activity himself)

the way ppl behave towards each other in a workplace or an office or a messageboard or ________ -- ie humanely or dickishly -- is of course an excellent INDICATOR of the achieved politics of that workplace or office or messageboard or ________

foucault = "moving right" = "now i have the right to make FAG JOKES again lol"

woah, I think that's a bit of an over-reaction..

no, i'm always making fag jokes, it's true.

like most people on ilx -- i started a thread about it, it tanked -- i have no active involvement in politics. what i'm corrosively cynical about is the idea we can redefine 'active involvement in politics' towards the realm of personal behaviour, so that being polite or dickish on messageboards is more of an indicator than the thing of the argument.

if someone could show that power was diffused throughout society, per dr casino, that would be a start -- i just don't see it, though.

but i'm trying to play the ball, not the man, here; i don't even know who dr casino is, and i wouldn't assume anything about why he says what he says.

I don't know how useful these labels are in general.

'Feminist', let alone 'male - feminist', is such a broad term that you have to enquire further to find out where they are coming from:

third wave?
post-feminist?
post-structuralist feminist?
feminist thinker and/or activist?

etc.

haha sorry yeah, i'm gettin my cannons in line for a big piece on this later in the year [the plain ppl of everywhere: hah! we'll believe that when we're readin it] and enrique wandered into my line of fire somewhat, so i tested my guns out! (it somehat relates to my point abt "moralism" on the other thread actually -- the academic rewiring of eg foucault took what he wz exploring (the situational ethics of sexuality) entirely out of the practical into the symbolic = what i wz callin "moralism", bcz it becomes a shut down of what can be said, rather than a genuine back-and-forth on how-to-speak-and-listen... probably i shd have sed "moralist bullying")

and plus i've always been kneejerkily intolerant of foax wielding arseholism as a badge of their committed radicalism, bcz it's basically (as here a little) an argument that "politics is always elsewhere so actually i don't have to bother"

i am of an age to be very VERY suspicious (still) of the use of macro-politics (especially symbolic macro-politics) to cast as invalid any form of micropolitics -- the lesson of 1968 is that this is a catastrophe as a strategy: micro is where we LIVE, union (and every other) activism is local b4 it's bigger (and the bigger better be adaptable to that), bein an editor of a magazine or a moderator-administrator on a messageboard is intrinsically political, bullying is a macropolitical symptom in a micropolitical context ect ect blah blah

"i'm trying to play the ball, not the man, here" = TRY HARDER ELSEWHERE SOMETIMES >:D

Ha ha I was such a dickhead in this thread.

the lesson of 1968 is

wow, that phrase takes me straight back to meetings I used to go to in Camden and Primrose Hill in the mid-late 80s...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ;-)

capn obvious but, wow, blount really ripped off the mark s. style, didn't he

Props to mark s. I don't want to give the impression that I devalue the kinds of work that can only be done through organized action - and as I said, "there are tons of healthy campaigns for this or that, depending on what particular feminism you endorse." I've been involved in some of those. Note, not trying to toot my own horn here - I was just adding to the numbers, which is I think an important role when you're talking about mass things. I also used to be the co-chair of my campus women's studies student organization, so to the extent that consciousness-raising is still a model, we were doing that too. So no beef with any of that!

if someone could show that power was diffused throughout society, per dr casino, that would be a start -- i just don't see it, though.

I always think of things like beauty myths. Earlier theory would hold that these are basically created by the media as a henchman of the patriarchy. But while clearly the media need to be held accountable and remain way WAY more a problem than they are a solution - on a day to day basis, the things said in the media are echo-chambered by the people around us. So, eg, the Regina Georges of the world pick up what's being broadcast in Seventeen or Cosmo or People or what have you, and use it to acquire power within their own worlds, which in turn means telling the other girls around them the ways they're too fat (or whatever). The magazines could all fold tomorrow and the Mean Girls would still be bouncing this stuff back and forth within their sphere of influence.

To me this leads to a greater sense of personal responsibility that brushes up against existentialism - if every day you wake up holding some measure of the power of the Man, do you choose to wield it or to undermine it?

James is much more fiery though!

I'm sure Blount learned to say "haha yeah" at the start of every sentence in the Navy.

http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/village-people/felipe.jpg

HAHA YEAH YOU MAGGOTS NOW GIVE ME 20 LAPS.