Michael Flood is one of the 'fathers' of the modern pro-feminist men's movement, and an activist for feminism among men. He's one of the founders of XYOnline, a resource for pro-feminist men. And do I mean a resource. The Men's Bibliography alone would warrant much thanks for Michael. It's organized by subject, and contains thousands of article listings of interest to feminist men. (Though I do have reservations about the Men's Strength campain that XYOnline supports, as I think it helps to support rigid traditional gender roles to some extent--i.e. that strength=masculine.) He's critical of the so-called Men's Rights movement (and various offshoots/related movements) in a serious way. The trap that some pro-feminist men fall into is to attack these movements as some sort of man-on-man grudge match. Instead, Flood uses (in part) core feminist principles to ask pointed questions.I particularly like his analysis (available as a PDF here) of Men's Rights advocates as riding a wave of conservatism, all the while claiming the mantle of 'new fatherhood':
Anti-feminist men’s groups have ridden the wave of right-wing backlashes against “political correctness” and efforts at social justice.In Australia as in other Western countries, the 1980s and 1990s saw the slowing down, or development of obstacles to, progress in women’s equality and gender justice. Australia underwent an economic and social restructuring, involving the winding back of the welfare state and the increasing dominance of market economics and economic rationalism. There have been at least three forms of attack on gender justice, part of the “revolt against behaving fairly”: justifications of social inequalities through biological determinism, social Darwinism and Sociobiology; attacks on policies or principles which have been a central part of feminist agendas such as equal opportunity and affirmative action legislation; and claims of a repressive ideological regime of ‘political correctness’. Anti-feminist men’s groups are a fourth, and they have taken up such discourses themselves in asserting pro-sexist agendas.
I'll probably talk more about Michael in future editions of Men Doing Feminist work, because, well, he's done a lot of work. But in the meantime, some linky goodness:
Wikipedia Article.
Men's Bibliography.
XYOnline
3 comments:
Very Interesting.
I just wanted to let you know about this "Speed Dating Experiment", in which the woman carrying it out concluded that "men love stupid women".
It would be interesting what you all have to say about it.
It won't surprise you to know that I find several flaws in Flood's approach (same thing with Kimmel, who I have read more extensively, and Messner). He writes well and has evidence for his claims (sometimes); he can be sympathetic to men with different views, but he sometimes does so in a way that is patronizing. Here are a few of the problems I had with his essay on the Men's Rights Movement:
- While his criticisms of MRA beliefs are often justified, his view of what MRAs say and believe seems overgeneralized
- He doesn't have a very good idea of why critics of feminism might have reasons to call aspects of it misandric. While men's rights advocates often erects caricatures of feminists, he fails to acknowledge the existence of feminists that fit even these caricatures.
- Like Kimmel, he trivializes men's experiences of sexism and discrimination as just emotional pain, an attitude that I doubt he would take towards women's experiences of pain. Indeed, this attitude seems a version of traditional masculine stoicism that suffering is "just" an emotion.
There are all kinds of feminist, so when one makes a generalized statement saying that they are a pro-feminist as a man, what does that exactly mean? What type of pro-feminist... social, radical, conservative, liberal, or all-purpose, etc....? This is important because NOT all feminist work in unity or believe in the same things and sadly you will find misogyny practiced even within the feminist movement among women. This may be why he does not get out of the emotion mode and into the realistic mode because he does not focus on the multiple dimensions of feminism. Within the feminist world we also have a backlash against women by women themselves because several believe that their view or feminist position is the best or most politically correct. Often many feminist whether lesbian or heterosexual can behave just like men. Since Feminism is a label it is important to understand what feminism means to someone under this label and to find out how it is applied in their worlds. This is because behind these labels you got real human beings with their own issues and identities. For instance Sarah Palin is a feminist, believe it or not, but falls on the far right of the political spectrum. Therefore we have all types of feminist with their own agendas and some may be out to protect women from violence but then not wish women to have access to abortion services or a right to academic advancement... etc... And then you got the sex-positive feminist who want women to be able to sell their bodies for financial gain but do not believe that this subjects women to male dominion and patriarchy. Since 'feminism' is a general label, it is important to find out what feminism means to people and how it is applied in their lives to assist women. Also what types of women does it assist and what types of women does it not assist? What are some of the reasons? and why? In academia we have the theoretical feminists and the practical feminists and everything in-between, so it is important to find out what is the purpose of the feminist- is their work for name and fame or to be trendy and hip? Or is to really assist women and children at the ground level who are suffering in one way or another from the consequences of patriarchy and oppression? There are various levels of suffering too. At the academic level there are many challenges for the feminist alternative researcher because of post-positivist Western scientific thinking and quantitative research. Even within the qualitative research world we have qualitative research challenges among the conventional researchers and the naturalistic ones.
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