Men and Feminism: Kind of Complicated

Isabelle Allonso interviewed John Stoltenberg for her blog, and Feminist Current was kind enough to publish an english translation.  It's an illuminating interview that is definitely a worthwhile read for feminist allies. When asked about men's place in relationship to feminist work, Stoltenberg said this: 

First of all I don’t think any man of conscience—whether self-identified as pro-feminist or not—can or should presume to speak in women’s place or “decide what feminism should be about.” That’s just a baseline principle. Many women have justifiable grievances about individual men who have disregarded it. Those “me too” men ought to know better, and they should not require scolding and hand-holding from women to figure it out, because exemplary life lessons abound: Individuals from the dominant class in other struggles have found countless meaningful ways to be of use while analogously abiding by that principle—for example, whites in the black civil-rights movement in the US, sons and daughters born to wealth in the movement for economic justice, non-Jews in the movements against antisemitism. Such sincerely committed allies always recognize and acknowledge the privilege that stems from their membership in the dominant class. And often such allies have found that their usefulness lies in deconstructing, disrupting, interrupting, exposing, protesting, and defying such systems of oppression from the inside. Same holds for any man of conscience who wishes to be of use on behalf of feminist revolution. It’s not complicated.--john-stoltenberg 

As with much that Stoltenberg has written, I find myself agreeing with the central points here, but disagreeing in important ways about how the execution of this stuff works; often my disagreements boil down to "but it's more complicated than that," something that one can almost always say and be correct about; still given that in this case Stoltenberg says "It's not complicated," I feel like I should chime in, because I think it can be complicated in important ways that we should acknowledge.

I think presuming to speak for women is something that allies constantly have to guard against doing--male privilege runs deep. But when Stoltenberg says pro-feminist men shouldn't decide what feminism should be about, we have to be careful to not equivocate: I agree that pro-feminist men shouldn't simply put out there what they think feminism should be about as if they are some sort of final arbiters of the definition of feminism.  However, pro-feminist men not only need to decide what feminism(s) make sense (to them), an argument can be made that they need to voice their views on this decision, perhaps even in the face of disagreeing with other feminists, regardless of the genders of those feminists.

Feminism isn't a monolith.  When folks of any gender first run into feminist concepts, we all begin to learn the conceptual frameworks involved.  Some find these concepts in academia, some through communities they are involved in, some even from pop culture.  To be clear: We all encounter what sexism is far earlier than that--but the conceptual frameworks around feminism come later.  Indeed, that is part of what feels so empowering for many of us--we finally have different ways of talking about (and hopefully changing) how fucked up sexism (and homophobia, and class issues, etc.) are, when we discover feminist frameworks, or lenses. Thing is, depending upon our own experiences, and upon how we first start understanding how we might work against sexism and the like, we almost immediately have to choose which feminism(s) seem to make sense to us. People of all genders do this, though of course they do it from different perspectives because of their gender (and for other reasons).  

So-called "radfem" folks, in the opinion of many feminists, are wrong about trans folks in important ways. "Mainstream" feminists are wrong about what feminism is about, according to many "radfems". Pro-sex feminists are wrong about sex work, according to folks like Gail dines (as well as the folks at Feminist Current, and Stoltenberg himself!) Womanists and other women of color call out feminists for racism underlying much of modern feminism. And these are just a few of the major disputes--there are myriad disputes around all sorts of issues. Where female feminists disagree, pro-feminist men may/must also disagree with at least some female feminists!

Now, because of various complexities, I also don't think that pro-feminist men need to be chiming in on every issue in every feminist space; even in spaces that welcome men explicitly (and there are many), I think Stoltenberg's general ideas here are true: There are so many ways that men can be of use to "feminist movement" (to use bell hooks' phrasing), and given male privilege, we ought to do much more listening than talking, more assisting and less leading. But I don't think it's "just that simple".  Men also may need to support the feminism(s) that we think make the most sense--and to do that we may need to also engage other men, women and folks of other genders in conversation about what we think makes the most sense.  That may mean (for me) mindfully talking about why I think some anti-pornography stances are wrong, or why I find the racism underlying much of modern feminism problematic. It might mean calling out other men on their sexism. It also means helping to create some feminist spaces that include men consciously and consistently in the movement--all the while acknowledging that some spaces will not and should not include men. 

And much of this work is complicated.  I think there is some harm that can come from the "it's just that simple" ways of thinking about men and feminism, because it can encourage folks to tend to ignore that feminism itself isn't a monolith, and to ignore that men, too, must understand, engage within and choose what feminism(s) make sense.  It's a good rule of thumb to defer to women in general as regards what feminism is, but because not all women agree on what feminism is, we're going to sometimes disagree with some female feminists--this may be read as "trying to define feminism," but if we back up what we're saying by acknowledging female feminists who agree with us, this is something valuable to do, if sometimes complexities abound. 

In that spirit, here's bell hooks:

 “A male who has divested of male privilege, who has embraced feminist politics, is a worthy comrade in struggle, in no way a threat to feminism, whereas a female who remains wedded to sexist thinking and behavior infiltrating feminist movement is a dangerous threat.”—  bell hooks, Feminism Is For Everybody.

 

Men Doing Feminist Work: Adam Horovitz

The Beastie Boys are kind of well-known these days for having learned some feminist lessons early on  in their careers, and with trying to make up for mistakes in their past. And I had heard a lot about all of that when Adam Yauch passed away recently.  But what I hadn't known was that Adam Horovitz and Kathleen Hanna are longtime partners, or that he did so much over the years to support Hanna during her illness, some of which will be revealed in the upcoming documentary about Hanna, The Punk Singer.  I never thought this blog would quote Entertainment Weekly, but here goes:

The Punk Singer is no dry polemic and it’s not just for hardcore fans of the music. There’s good laughs, and, my, what a romance. The movie revisits the early days of Hanna’s relationship with Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz, whom she married in 2006. The scenes of him at her side through her illness and the literal loss of her voice paint such a warm portrait of a working partnership. Punk Singer producer and good friend Tamra Davis, who’s married to Mike D., agrees. “I would read back in Bikini Kill press ‘They don’t like men, they don’t like men.’ And I really wanted to make sure that this film didn’t ever have that opinion because that’s not what that message was ever about. Kathleen and Adam have this incredible love story.”   

 Hanna’s eyes well when she talks about her husband’s devotion to her throughout these trying several years. “He’s so awesome I want to scream it from the mountains,” she says. “I mean, dude hooked me up with an IV for eight months every day.”

So Horovitz is pro-feminist in his professional life, but he's also doing what is sometimes the most important feminist work for men to do, in his day-to-day life, in his relationship with his partner. The filmmaker thought this supportive relationship was important enough that Horovitz is the only man on camera during the entire movie:

 “It wasn’t a given in the beginning,” Anderson said. “I think a lot of people would expect that because of this story of Kathleen -- 'President Feminist' -- that Adam is not going to be in there. First of all, I know what a cool, amazing and supportive relationship they have. There was no assumption whether he would be in or out, but over the course of filming it became really apparent that this is not only Kathleen’s husband but it’s also her best friend. “

The film's site is here.

A clip from the movie, which I can't wait to see:  

Appeals to Humanity, not Masculinity

There's something of a feminist revolution happening in the gaming world, thanks largely to the response of lots of great folks to the hating on Anita Sarkeesian's project, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.  If you're not aware of the whole issue, Sarkeesian has a great roundup of the whole thing here, and I like this article in particular as a summation/commentary.

And, luckily, lots of men who are gamers are getting involved (though more involvement earlier would have been nice, I suppose).  I'm really glad men are doing some of the work here, so it's with mixed feelings that I point out that I think some of the help is less useful than other of the help. In particular, responses which focus on enforcing traditional masculinity as a way of encouraging guys to move away from misogyny are, to my mind, not taking the problem of misogyny on in a way that keeps an eye on long-term changes.  Earnest W. Adams' recent piece on Jezebel is a great example of a well-meaning piece that emphasizes traditional masculinity in such a way so as to sort of defeat its own purpose.

I like much of what Adams has to say, and I'm glad he has said it. He frames his point by basically saying that men who are misogynist gamers are victims of their own arrested development--they somehow got stuck in the "eww...girls!" phase of adolescence, rather than going through that phase and then maturing into adulthood. Even this analysis has its problems (he never asks why there is an "eww....girls!" phase to begin with; I suspect if our culture wasn't steeped in misogyny, there wouldn't be), but the basics make a lot of sense, as does his basic advice to the misogynist male gamers:  Grow up!

I really do think that Adams is on to something here (please read his whole article, because it has lots to offer), but he undermines his own points by confusing "grown up" with "real man". Early on he notes that
"What distinguishes a real man from a boy is that a man takes responsibility for his actions and does not abuse this power." The "real man vs. boy" distinction could just be about "young'uns vs. adults", but in using the "real man" terminology, Adams is invoking enforcement of traditional masculinity, and "real man" has so long been so synonymous with "don't be a pussy/woman/little boy!" that it doesn't take us in the direction we really want to go. Instead, we end up back at square one, with "real men" telling "little boys" how to be "real men".  Adams goes on to say:  Say these words into your headset: "I'm disappointed in you. I thought you were a man, not a whiny, insecure little boy." The "whiny, insecure little boy" language depends on emasculating, and really sounds bullying, which in the long range just reinforces misogyny, on my view. I'd like the "grow up!" approach more if it focused more clearly on appealing to guys' humanity rather than their masculinity.

Men Doing Feminist Work: Adam Yauch (MCA of the Beastie Boys)

I had vaguely known that the Beastie Boys had shifted their music over the years from "party hard" to something more socially responsible, but I didn't know just how much until I read Jessica Valenti's article.  It's worth a read, for sure.  A snippet:

And that’s what was so remarkable and emotional about the Beastie Boys’ feminist turnaround. Maybe your father says sexism doesn’t exist and your boyfriend disrespects you. Maybe you have to deal with assholes on the subway who rub up against you every day and laugh when you yell at them. But listening to this band that you love so much say that your pain is real, that the world is fucked up and that they are not going to participate in actions that hurt you anymore because they care about you—it was the overwhelming feeling of being made visible. They were sending a clear message to their female fans: this isn’t okay, we have your back, we’re sorry.

Anti-Harassment

I love this video. There are, of course, some complexities to calling other men out right-then-right-there: Can it be done in a way that doesn't perpetuate conflict and violence between men, for example? There are also complexities around race that need to be taken into account--as a white guy, calling out a black guy on street harassment means something different than if another black guy does it. And yet, despite all of the complexities, I can't help but think that the world would be better off if we just heard more men like the men in this video...

Men Doing Feminist Work: Si Spurrier and Paul Cornell

Seems there's a bit of a wave of allies in comics these days.  Recently, Paul Cornell, a celebrated comic (and television) writer, decided that he's not going to be on comic book panels that don't have some gender parity:

 If I'm on, at any convention this year, a panel that doesn't have a 50/50 gender split (I'll settle for two out of five), I'll hop off that panel, and find a woman to take my place.

Yay for Paul.

And now, Si Spurrier has followed Paul's example, and given up his seat on a panel to Tammy Taylor.  I hope this trend continues!

No, Seriously: Another Space for Feminist Men

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Myth of Male Weakness

UPDATE:  Schwyzer has shown himself to be a complete jerk. Leaving this post here, however, so as not to erase the fact that I was yet one more person he fooled. 

From his speech at Slutwalk LA, Hugo provides a great overview of the myth of male weakness:

Men Doing Feminist Work: Yolo Akili

It's been a while since I did a post on men doing feminist work, but when I came across Yolo Akili, there was no question that I had to let folks know about him. (As with many of the men in these posts, I'm sure lots of y'all know about Yolo already, and I'm late to the game!) I was given a link to a new blog series he is working on about "queering the cause" regarding work around men's violence against women that, while probably controversial to some folks in a lot of ways, is nuanced and complex. And in a world (and blogosphere) where we don't often enough hear the voices of black, queer people, I hope his ideas get discussed and expanded upon. Please read his whole series, but here is a tidbit:

As a very visible and vocal queer man my very presence has often been disruptive in these spaces. It has been disruptive because, among many other things, the “violence against women” dialogue is intrinsically heterosexist and homophobic, not to mention virulently sexist. Through my work with numerous organizations that fall under this canon “of violence against women” I have been taken aback at how the generational analysis coupled with a “second wave” narrative of power and gender have produced an enviroment that does very little to acknowledge the deeply rooted relationship between heterosexism, homophobia and sexism. It has also been intriguing to me how many of the organizations who cling to this ideological perspective claim to be unaware of or are dissonant from organizations like Incite who have explored the complexities of these challenges in detail

.

There's not a whole lot that Yolo doesn't do. Here's just a little bit from his "about" page:

He is a graduate of Georgia State University, where he earned his B.A in Women’s & African American Studies. He is a licensed 200 level Iyengar Yoga teacher (RYT), with Yoga Alliance having studied and graduated from Yoga of India Yoga School, in Sandy Springs Georgia. He has been awarded the Creative Leadership Award by the Feminist Women’s Health Center , A ZAMI award and the “Unity In Community Award” from Unity in Christ Fellowship Church.

Through his gender & sexuality activism, he has been an organizer with United 4 Safety (LGBTQ Domestic Violence Organization), Spark! Reproductive Justice and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. He worked as the Regional training coordinator for Men Stopping Violence where he organized the mentor program, taught men’s education classes (commonly called batterer’s intervention courses) trained and educated organizations and individuals on gender based violence and was the lead architect and designer of “Mercury” An online training for men on gender based violence. Yolo currently manages the operations of Akili inc, providing provocative trainings, education, yoga classes and spiritual consultations to groups and individuals across the world.

Oh, and he's a poet who produced this short documentary around his poem: "Are We the Kind of Boys We Want?"

Enjoying The Takeback

Or:
Why I'm Enjoying The Takeback more than The Good Men Project

Is it just me, or is there a cacaphony of intelligent, thoughtful writing right now that centers around redefining masculinity in ways that reflect at least some of the progress that has been made by feminism against patriarchy? Most recently, I've started reading both The Takeback and The Good Men Project.

Originally, I thought I'd write a long post comparing and contrasting these two sites, but upon further reflection, that seems like a lot of work, and there's no real reason to do that. The two groups of men are coming from different places, have different goals, and will therefore produce different content. And, though there are interesting articles in both places, The Takeback is explicitly pro-feminist, while The Good Men Project embraces the idea that they are allowing "both sides" to have a conversation (as if feminism, with its long history, is on one side while MRA's, who are comprised mostly of men who love the status quo of patriarchy except where it means they don't get laid and/or get custody of their kids sometimes, are on the other side).

Which is not to say that The Takeback is free from controversy, or that I like everything they're writing about; rather, it's more clear that the men (and women, and folks of all genders) who are putting The Takeback together are obviously more aware of the work that has already be done by feminists, and want to build on that. The Good Men Project is more obviously a profit-motivated sort of enterprise, with aspirations of a media empire--and as such, they cater more toward the mainstream.

It reminds me a little bit of what I perceive as the difference between Bitch magazine and BUST magazine--Bitch appeals much more to me, in that they take a more feminist stand on lots of things (for instance, they don't accept tobacco ads, in part because it's a feminist issue), but I can totally see why folks might want to read BUST, because it is something of an alternative to traditional women's magazines. At any rate, I think it's good that The Takeback and The Good Men Project are both out there, though I'll turn to The Takeback more often for more interesting conversations.

And I have to face it: The Takeback is the sort of thing I had envisioned Feminist Allies becoming someday--only it's way more slick, interesting and inclusive than I could ever have made this site, probably. But I'll happily read them, quote them and link to them!

Men Doing Feminist Work: Poetry Edition!

I think this is a first for Feminist Allies (which is kind of embarrassing, really): Poetry. Andrew Rihn, a reader of FA, let me in on his chapbook Outside the Clinic. I don't know much about poetry, but I know what I like: A man writing about reproductive rights in wonderful language. My favorite is "PETA weighs in", but I also really like "Midwestern Sex Talk" and "The Life Counselor". This is a man doing some great feminist work.

From the author's note:

As a male, I’ll never have an abortion. One of the privileges of
my sex is that I will never enter an abortion clinic as a patient.
However, according to Dr. Leroy Carhart, a friend and
associate of Dr. Tiller’s, “men have had unlimited availability to
‘abortion’ since the beginning of time. Men can walk away from
unwanted pregnancies with virtually no response from
government.”

While our current political discourse typically rests on binaries
(good and evil; them and us), poetry often resists such
discourse. Its lines are less clean cut, less distinct. It
encourages us to see people as complicated human beings, not
simple rhetorical subjects.

And a review:

“The American debate about abortion and contraception is too often
conducted with anger and violence. Outside the Clinic is a powerful
look at these issues and those who stand on either side. It reveals
everyday truths that are often drowned out by the politicization of
abortion. It looks beyond the commotion and into the heart.”
—Kellie Copeland, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio

Buy the chapbook here.
Read it online here.
Check out Andrew's blog: Midwestern Sex Talk

Do We Dare?

A new blog for male feminists, written by a feminist man in his 20s: What Men Dare Do

One day, a friend of mine, a girl, who was then and still is one of my best friends, and I were hanging out. I couldn't tell you where or what we were doing, but I think we were perhaps on our way back from a party, or maybe going to one. She mentioned to me, very casually, "You know, Jeff, sometimes you make these sexist jokes, and they're hurtful."

It was in a very casual situation, and perhaps my remembrance of it gives it more weight than it really had, but that was my "click" moment. Somehow, that casual comment, even though I'd already read about and believed all these things about feminism, hammered home the fact that I was not living by the principles I purported to stand by. How I was living was hurting my friends, and not unlike other young people, my friends meant everything to me.

(By the way, this "Jeff" is not me...though I may like his blog more in part because he has such a great name.)

Go Read Fem.men.ist

If you're not already reading Richard's blog, you're missing out. Here's a sample of Richard's discussion of Terrance Dean's book, Hiding in HipHop:

There definitely seems to be more vilifying of the men in DL culture than criticism of a larger culture that gives few options for people to just live their lives. I am not endorsing anyone cheating on their wives/partners in order to have down low interactions, I just think that some of the pain that Terrance Dean seems to convey should be taken into account... As a hetero man, I myself wonder what it would be like if I lived in bizarro switcheroo-change-o land, and had to keep up appearances to be "a gay man" but really want to date women, and have to see them on the down low. If you are also a straight man, and reading that made you cringe... hold on to that feeling. Especially if you are not able to understand why men would go on the down low. Empathy to the human condition is essential for us all to make it y'all...

Richard's also involved in a project I'm involved in, The Men's Story Project, which all y'all should come see if you're local to the SF Bay Area.

Men Who Do Feminist Work -- The Men of the Movie "Protagonist":Mark Pierpont, Joe Loya, Mark Salzman and Hans-Joachim Klein

I recently had the great pleasure of watching Jessica Yu's film, Protagonist. I am sometimes a bit of a documentary film junkie, and I was looking around for something to watch on ye old online-dvd-in-the-mail service's webpage, and ran into this film. Yu has several other prior films to her credit, and I haven't seen any of them, though I hope to see them all, now that I've seen this one.

The premise of the documentary is simple: Yu interlaces the stories of four men who, on the face of it, only seem to have a few things in common. As the film goes on, the relationships between the men's stories begin to come into focus, and it turns out that all four men have been struggling with various strains of traditional masculinity, and, though self-analyzing struggle, have found different sorts of masculinities to embrace.

I'm being extremely heavy-handed in my analysis, but the film itself has a pretty light touch. It wasn't until the last third of the movie that I realized that masculinity was really at the center of things for these men--and recognizing the ways in which they could reject rigid gender roles helped them to overcome some of the central difficulties of their lives. Feminism isn't mentioned by name here, and it's pretty clear that the men involved might not characterize themselves as doing feminist work, but, since feminist theory has done so much of the heavy lifting as regards railing against traditionally rigid gender roles, I say they are doing feminist work nonetheless.

I encourage everybody who is interested in documentary storytelling, men who are struggling with traditional conceptions of masculinity, and pro-feminist men in general to check out the film. And I don't think I can encourage you to do so more than by giving a bit of background on these four men. From the movie's site:

The Stories At the heart of each man's story is the quest to transcend his imperfections. While each man's motivations are highly personal, the stories demonstrate how the individual struggle between fate and character can have far-reaching consequences.

HANS-JOACHIM KLEIN suffers through a cruel childhood in a working class neighborhood near Frankfurt, Germany. When Klein joins the leftist movement in the 1970s, he is driven as much by idealism as by the desire to rebel against his authoritarian father, a cop. As Klein's activism evolves from radicalism to terrorism, he becomes a trusted comrade in the Revolutionary Cells (RZ), an offshoot of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang. With the RZ he joins Carlos the Jackal in the violent kidnapping of eleven OPEC ministers, which leaves three people dead and Klein with a near-fatal gunshot wound.

MARK PIERPONT has a strict religious upbringing in New Jersey. The "black sheep" of the family, he realizes his attraction to other men, but desperately wants to avoid this sentence to "eternal hell." Pierpont's drive to suppress his homosexuality leads him to become a missionary, preaching abroad to crowds of thousands. Back in the states he infiltrates gay bars to spread the word of Jesus, convincing himself that his "homosexual problem" has been cured.

JOE LOYA also comes from a home steeped in both love and fear of God, as enforced by his zealous father. At age seven, Loya's mother dies, and his father's grief explodes into violence against Joe and his brother. When Loya finally fights back against years of abuse, the act of dethroning his father ignites a sense of intense power, of triumph over hypocrisy and brutality. Loya's determination to recapture that thrill leads him to his own life of brutality, in which he eventually robs over thirty banks.

MARK SALZMAN comes from suburban Connecticut. The smallest boy in his class, he is the subject of relentless torment from his peers and his mild-mannered parents offer little guidance. Upon seeing the show "Kung Fu" on television, Salzman is convinced that he can achieve personal transformation through the study of martial arts. Though he becomes best friends with the chief bully in his school, Salzman's quest to become a man of physical and spiritual strength is warped by his allegiance to a sadistic master.

PROTAGONIST seeks not to judge its subjects or make political pronouncements, but rather to use these stories as a window into human nature. Though our subjects' backgrounds are diverse, their shared experience points to a universal conflict: the conflict between the desire to control our world, and to accept our fundamental limitations.

What these descriptions don't tell you is that all four men were able to creating something of a reversal of their own fortunes, even though there was still a cost associated with how they were before the reversal.

Thanks for Jessica Yu, and to these four men, for creating such an interesting window into the inner lives of men and their relationship to traditionally rigid conceptions of masculinity.

Men Doing Feminist Work: Michael Flood

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

Men Doing Feminist Work: Feminist Dad

Marc at Feminist Dad doesn't have much time for blogging these days, being the father of a new little kid, but when he does find some time to post, he explores a lot of interesting topics, and asks a lot of questions. I'm particularly fond of his discussion on the blog about the ins and outs of him joining a local "mother's" group:

But what about fathering? What does it mean to father, if mothering carries such a gendered connotation? If it means maintaining the breadwinner role, then many fathers today will strongly argue that for years we've been working to redefine what fathering means in our society. If this is so, are we conflating notions of mothering and fathering work? Are we all neutral Parents, or should there still be a "Mom's Group" and then perhaps a separate one for Dads? After all, there are Dads in our neighborhood. They just don't go to the meetings, or at least not the ones that I know about.

He also often notices the ways in which rigid gender roles along the lines of parenting pop up along the way, like when they first began planning a flight with their newborn:

The bad news is that only mothers seem to be expected to fly with (or without) their babies: Mothers flying with, and now without, their child will be permitted to bring breast milk in quantities greater than three ounces as long as it is declared for inspection at the security checkpoint. How about "Mothers (and now introducing, new and improved, Fathers!) flying with their child..." for a change. The rest of the TSA page speaks in gender-free language, mostly by using "you" and "your" alot. But that doesn't change the headlining picture of a mother feeding a baby.

There are lots of daddy blogs out there (Marc has some on his blogroll), but this is a great one for being explicitly feminist.

Go check it out.

Men Doing Feminist Work: Kevin Andre Elliot at Slant Truth

Since I've been talking a bit lately about intersectionality, I'd like to quickly point out that y'all should be reading Kevin over at Slant Truth if you're not already. Not only does he do good work as a feminist man, he finds ways to consistently talk about the intersections of gender, race, queerness and class. He also often takes an international focus on issues, which is somewhat rare (in my experience) in lots of the great feminist blogs that I read.

16 Days, Day 6 -- Men Doing Feminist Work: A Call to Men

In the spirit of 16 Days of Action Against Gender Violence, this week's Men Doing Feminist Work focuses on a group of men doing work on men's violence against women. I discovered this group because of Melissa over at Shakesville. She's got their great 10 Things Men Can Do To End Men's Violence Against Women list up over there (which she got via Kevin, who got it via Donna Darko), but the site is full of other good information as well, like this list of places to get statistics about men's violence against women.

In addition to all of that, they have a freakin' Hip Hop CD. (Sure, it's done with what is -- to me, the atheist that I am -- a creepy "Christian" slant, but the world needs more socially conscious music in general, so I'm not complaining.)

Go check 'em out.

Men Doing Feminsit Work: Ahmad Ghashmary

Hopefully you're all already reading Diary of a Black Male Feminist, but just in case you're not, you may not have seen the video of Ahmad Ghashmary, posted over at DoaBMF last week. Ghashmary is an interesting guy, doing feminist work in Jordan, where his views seem to be often met with either apathy or aggression.
First, check out the video:


A good deal of his blog is in English, and well worth reading. In a post about so-called honor killings, he says:

But the question remains, why are people doing so and thinking in such a backward way? Regardless of these accidents there are many indications that people in Arab societies are beginning to be more aware of the danger and barbarity of these rituals that say that whoever tends to defame the reputation of the family deserves to die. In a referendum done on the internet by www.alarabiya.net the results were hopeful. 62.96 % of the voters think that this crime is not justified, and it is not supported by any religion or law, but is another example of the domination of rituals and customs in our daily life. A minority of 12.36% think that it is the only resort to eradicate bad people from our society. 24.68% were neutral. What we are aiming at is to leave no single person in our society who might believe that killing innocent people might be a remedy to any problem.

And, when confronted by a friend about his feminism, Ghashmary has a succinct, practical approach to explaining his motivations:

I spent almost two years looking around me for men who might share me the same views, but it was all in vain; everyone believed I'm wasting my time. A friend of mine has recently blamed me for dedicating my efforts to fight for women's equality, and he called that "Lunacy"; I answered him saying, "The best person in my life is my sweetheart and she's a woman, my favorite Arab singer is Fayyrouz and she is a woman, my favorite non-Arab singer is Celine Dion and she is a woman, my favorite professor is called Fadia and she is a woman, my favorite athelet is Maria Sharapova and she is a woman, my favorite movie star is Julia Roberts and she is a woman, my favorite talk show presenter is Oprah Winfrey and she is a woman, my favorite novelist is Jane Austen and she is a woman, and so on. And still you wonder why I am fighting for their rights.

I like this guy so much that I'm willing to forgive him for the Celine Dion thing.

Men Doing Feminsit Work: Michael Messner

This week we'll take a look at Michael Messner, a sociologist who specializes in the relationship between masculinity and organized sports.

From his bio on the University of Souther California site, where he is a professor:

Michael Messner's most recent books are Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements (1997), Men's Lives (2004); Paradoxes of Youth and Sport (2002), and Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports (2002). His articles have appeared in Gender & Society, Theory & Society, Men and Masculinities, and Sociology of Sport Journal. He is a past president of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, and has conducted several studies of gender in sports media for the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, and for Children Now.

His 1992 book, Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity, takes a critical look at how masculinity is shaped by organized sports, but it is his complex analysis of the impact of traditional masculinities on women's sports (and the effects of Title IX) that I find the most intriguing. In a review of Welch Suggs' book, A Place on the Team: The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX, Messner brings his analysis to bear:

Yet, herein lies a tension in the public debates about Title IX, and to a certain extent in Suggs's narrative. Suggs is right to raise questions about women's sports' uncritical adoption of "the male model" of sports. Sport sociologists have documented the many ways that men's college sports reflect and perpetuate many of the most negative aspects of narrow conceptions of masculinity (including violence to self and others) and promote values of commercialization that are antithetical to what many see as the mission of university life. Suggs points out that women athletes now face a rising rate of serious injury (especially to the knees) and other health-related problems; that their higher graduation rates, compared with those of men athletes, might now tumble; and that the "club" system of youth sports, as a feeder system to the university, has favored white middle-class kids, thus making it difficult for African American women to benefit from Title IX to the extent that white women have.

These are all important issues, but since Suggs falls short of a radical critique of men's sports, two unsatisfactory alternatives remain: women's sports should use Title IX to "go for the money" and mimic men's sports as much as possible, including taking on all of the costs and negative consequences of men's sports; or women's sports should return to the pre-Title-IX ethic of healthy noncompetitive sports and games. This latter will not happen, of course. As Suggs points out, Tide IX and women's sports are here to stay.

So are we stuck with the unsatisfactory dynamic of liberal, equalopportunity feminism fighting against the backlash of an anti-Title-IX conservatism that claims to fight for fairness for men? I think not. Although Suggs does not become a critic or an advocate-preferring to stay, I believe, in the middle space of the reporter-I think it's consistent with his reporting to suggest that women's sports activists need to proceed simultaneously on two fronts. First, continue to use Tide IX to fight for equal opportunities (still far from achieved, as Suggs points out with ample statistics on recruiting, coaching, and funding in women's college sports). second, wage a critical analysis of the negative aspects of the dominant men's sports-especially football, I would argue, which stands at the center of the sport-media-commercial complex. Far from being the goose that lays the golden egg (as its advocates like to suggest), institutionalized football is a major reason for the perpetuation of gender inequity in sports, for the ramping up of commercialization processes, and for a disproportionate number of the problems generally associated with college sports. And football's monopoly over resources, as economist Andrew Zimbalist's work has so clearly shown, is one of the main reasons that the "marginal" ("nonrevenue") men's sports are so vulnerable today when university athletics departments need to trim their budgets. Playing sports is good for girls and women-that has now been established by research, is accepted in public opinion, and is supported by the law. But the question of how we organize our sports-both for women and for men-needs to be put at the center of the table. Until we ask those more radical questions, we will be stuck in the quandary that Welch Suggs so nicely describes.

Messner is utilizing the feminist conceptual took of intersectionality, noting where gender, race, sexual orientation and class contribute to organized sport in order to take a critical look at male masculinity.

Messner has continued to broaden his study from men's organized sports to the ways in which men organize with each other in general, as the title of his Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements suggests.

You can't help liking a guy who says it like it is, even when he's liable to ruffle more than a few feathers. In an article about Chico State Alumni, Messner is quoted talking about the way some men use gang rape not only as a way to control women, but as a way to bond with each other sexually:

"Gang rape is not about sex as far as the victim is concerned, it's a brutal assault, and a stripping away of dignity, but when it comes to the group dynamic of the guys I think there is something sexual going on in gang rape, and it's not necessarily sex with a woman, because in gang rape the woman is really not there as a human being -- she is the vessel through which men are having sex with each other," said Messner.

More on Messner:
Other books by Messner.
Messner's Wikipedia entry.