A brief refresher for those who snoozed through Women’s Studies class: Feminism developed in the late 1800s in the Western world and has been characterised by three waves based on its goals and victories at certain times. First Wave focused on legal rights for women and suffrage, Second Wave, beginning in the early 1960s, concentrated on family and workplace, triumphing causes in reproductive rights, wage equality and career opportunity. Where we’re at now is the Third Wave, starting in the 1990s, which has almost sprung up as a way to handle the backlash against Second Wave feminism, to protect women’s equality and fight for more of it. The Third Wave works to reshape how women are viewed in media and society, and also strives to broaden the reach of equality to women of all races as well as the queer and transgender populations.
Feminists want to be equal to men, so if men wholeheartedly agree with that equality, it would happen, right? Just because feminism is the goal of equality for women doesn’t mean women should be alone in that fight. Guys are welcome, even needed. In an ideal world, every person would be a humanist, someone who triumphs the just treatment of everyone. Feminism is a key component of that end goal: without women being treated as equals, we can’t have fair conditions for all humans, obviously. Men and women should be humanists and feminists. But feminism is a sticky enough situation for women, with so many not even understanding the term. So you can imagine how messy things get when guys start declaring themselves for or against feminism.
Amazingly, there are still people out there who think feminism is about hating men or making it wrong to be a housewife. Feminism seems like such a simple concept: to make the world a better place for women and to treat men and women equally. But it’s so misconstrued that there are actually guys who think they’re not allowed to be a feminist because they were not born with the right number of chromosomes.
There are also guys who adamantly claim to be feminists but their behaviour reveals that they have no idea what feminism is. Some critics decried Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines lyrics and video for being “rapey” and misogynistic. He explained in an interview with Matt Lauer that “If you listen to the lyrics, it says, ‘That man is not your maker.’ It’s actually a feminist movement within itself.” Thicke then goes on to say that it doesn’t matter if you’re a good girl or a bad girl, you can still have a good time. He has apparently discovered some sect of feminism that fights for the equality of uptight girls and hard-partiers.
Eliot Spitzer is the former New York governor that will be forever remembered for his prostitution scandal. Right there, his notoriety would seem to negate his claim to feminism. But he disagrees. On MSNBC, he defended his patronage of prostitution by saying “The record I had was one of devout dedication to women’s rights…” and gave a firm yes to interviewer Chris Hayes’s direct question of whether he considered himself a feminist.
Then there’s Hugo Schwyzer, a supposedly feminist man so controversial that there are websites devoted to decrying him. Schwyzer was a gender studies professor in Pasadena and a prolific feminist writer before his behavior was revealed. In a manic series of tweets, he admitted to sleeping with students, cheating on his wife, and trying to kill his (now ex) girlfriend. He exposed himself as a hypocrite, admitting that while he was writing against men dating much younger women, he was seeing a woman half his age. Schwyzer said he used feminism as a social and sexual trump card. According to Los Angeles Magazine, he tweeted “I secretly wanted to be THE male feminist. And I used it sexually too. It was part of my game.”
There are men out there who don’t want to be feminists because they genuinely believe women are not equal. There are men who think women are equal but they can’t really have a part in working on that becoming a reality because, hello, they’re not women. There are men who think they’re feminists but behave like misogynists, whether they intend to or not. And then there are the men, like Schwyzer, who believe being a feminist would score them brownie points. Heather Laine Talley is a feminist theory professor who wrote for The Feminist Wire about the problem of faux feminist men she sees in her work. Guys sign up for her classes and seem enthusiastic about feminism, but the reality of their behavior ranges from well-intentioned misunderstanding to faking it for dark ulterior motives.
That’s not to write off all guys as misinformed or misogynist though, and as men like John Legend and Joseph Gordon Levitt do prove, there is such a thing as a male feminist. Noah Berlatsky wrote an essay for The Atlantic about why he considers himself a feminist, explaining that he sees the way society treats women as weaker is a problem for all of humanity. John Brougher is a male feminist and creator of the aptly named MaleFeminists.com. He opined for CNN that he sees misogyny as detrimental to the human race, citing examples of the pay gap, double sexual standards and the “she was asking for it” rape defense.
There are many guys who prove that men can be just as strong advocates for the cause as women. They might feel unwelcome at times. There are forums on feminist site Jezebel where women doubt guys’ ability to comprehend their cause, and blatantly titled essays like “Unpopular Opinion: It Pisses Me Off When Men Call Themselves Feminists” on the also-feminist site xoJane. But these reactions are to men like Robin Thicke, Pharrell, Hugo Schwyzer…and all the guys who either purposely or accidentally get it wrong. The most common request from women directed at guys who want to be feminists? Less talking, more listening. Basically, for a guy to be a feminist, they have to do the same thing as a woman: understand what it means, simple as that.
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Text Courtney Iseman