Can men be feminists?

The first paragraph is intriguing and therefore led nicely into the rest of the article. We read plenty of articles in newspapers and other media about bad-boy behaviour, most especially in the arena of sport. Plenty of marriages fail because of male dominance gone haywire. And there are plenty of workplaces where females continue to be paid lower wages than male counterparts. There is certainly a need for feminism to be active in the lives of women and men. However, an important point to remember is that relationships between men and women do not always fit someone else's blueprint. Life is more often than not a bit messy and working through the mess should be a (sort of) equal enterprise.

In my approach to research, I use feminist standpoint theory (there are different types) because one day, I was given an article by Alison Wylie which just made so much sense, especially for my area of study - clergy sexual misconduct against adults in the Catholic Church. What appealed was not that it was feminist but that it believed that the people who know most about an injustice are those that have suffered that injustice. Feminist standpoint theory applied this predominantly to women; I have applied it to any abuse survivor female or male. Some feminists will reject me, others applaud. Personally, I don’t really care - I do not believe in putting theory before or above people and reality. We make a big mistake when we identify our being with an ism or an agenda - woe betide anyone who begs to differ from it if you 'join'. Theories, isms are tools, not an end in themselves. So, can men be feminists is a worrying question for me. Can we be honest and true to ourselves whoever we are, that's more important. I was told by a radical lesbian feminist that I was the most feminist man she's met - She meant it as a great compliment, but it doesn't at all define me and doesn't really mean a lot.

Yet further confirmation that the world has gone mad!!

This article assumes that "man" and "woman" are settled, distinct categories. That's a wee bit passé. Nowadays, someone with a penis and testicles can say they are a woman and get away with it. In fact in many jurisdictions you're legally liable if you respond to them “That's bollocks!” (pardon the pun). Feminism is in crisis. Either it needs to acknowledge there is a real difference between a man and a woman, which in essential properties goes down to physical levels such as - shock, horror – genitalia - in which case it bows to the loathsome Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics from which Feminism has always sought to liberate itself. Or it must succumb to the Enlightenment/post-Enlightenment momentum on which it has traded, and assert that the difference between men and women is a purely subjective construct - in which case, ultimately, so is Feminism itself.

Can men be feminists? That’s a question that only feminists can answer because the descriptor is theirs by creation and theirs to bestow.

HH, this has nothing to do with anatomy unless you want to it to be thus. Please go read Elizabeth Farralley’s excelent pièce in The Age this week : < https://www.theage.com.au/national/what-the-planet-needs-from-men-20190214-p50xrq.html >

Men - whatever their colour and sexuality - aren't the only ones who can hold strong general positions while failing to consistently practise them personally. We all do it at times. Brenna rightly points out that there are many different definitions of feminism. Surely the honest attempt to hold to one of them qualifies a man to be called a feminist? And - with all due respect for the opinion expressed in Brenna's opening sentence, I'm far from believing it to be true in all cases. Sometimes people of one ethnicity can and must speak for the experience of people of another, simply because the former can and the latter can't. Sometimes being human is enough.

"Sometimes being human is enough". Absolutely. Words of deep wisdom and experience, Joan, not just theory.

The question "Can men be feminists?" has NOTHING to do with whether there are objective differences between men and women? Enlighten me, G.M.

The current wave of "Feminists" seems to succumb to the modern heresy of "identity victimhood" as a way of categorising themselves and pushing their barrel. I would prefer to start from the realisation over the past 1-2 hundred years, at least in Western Christian civilisation, that women are morally and ethically equal to men, are loved by God just as much, and have as much inherent dignity. They are of necessity biologically a bit different, and that needs to be taken into account (as my father used to say from personal experience "who is his right mind would actually want to be and infantry soldier"), but in almost all sensible ways should have the same social, occupational and educational rights and opportunities as men. They should also have their rights to motherhood, as they individually wish to express that, fully protected.

As a man can I be pro immigrants, anti slavery or pro refugees?

Thanks Eugene for your perspective. The modern heresy of "identity victimhood". Is it a heresy that women are often denied their own sexuality? Is it a heresy that male sexuality is forced upon women (by means of rape, wife beating)? Is it a heresy that men command or exploit women's labor to control their produce? I could go on.

A new term needed for male feminists, so they don't have the right and opportunity to speak for women? Men cannot speak for women on women's issues? The key word hear is FOR- are you saying you don't believe men should have the right and opportunity to speak IN SUPPORT of women? Isn't it true, however it may grate on ultra-feminists, or however much others may deny it, that much of the gains that have been made by women (with still more needed) would not have been made without the vocal and active support of a significant number of men?

Feminism is not about genitalia HH. Have you read the article by Farrelly yet?

Dear Pam, I appreciate you point. But the heresy is picking out women as a particular victim group rather than putting them into solidarity with all those who suffer from exploitation, violence and so many other abuses of power. It is also to focus only on the dark side and not enough on the positive striving for opportunity and achievement, in the way that the Pankhursts, or indeed Mary Ward, May McKillop and even Hildegard of Bingen did. Best regards

Thanks GM. To repeat: feminism assumes real objective differences between men and women, including genitalia. I agree with feminists here. But feminists have largely joined the post-enlightenment mob that say men can choose to identify as women and vice versa. This is utter rubbish and makes a nonsense of feminism to boot. Which brings me to Elizabeth Farrelly’s piece (thanks for the link, though!) Men snore and their women go off to sleep in other rooms. Apparently the opposite doesn’t happen. Except that just about everyone knows it does, including one of the commentators to her post. An inauspicious opening gambit. But who am I to have an opinion? I differ from Farrelly when she goes on to claim (but sadly not supply) “insurmountable” evidence that the consequences of the 1 degree C of global warming since 270 years ago are, inter alia, the floods in Nth Qld and bushfires in Tassie, and from her opinion that stopping the boats, as opposed to letting more come and add to the 1200 drownings under Labor, was a manifestation of masculine cruelty. I’m doomed G.M.: I’m a fearful raging control freak!

I am disturbed by the views of people who want to divide humans and who have no empathy for the other sex and even see them as enemies. I am not a feminist but a Personist upholding the rights of all and denigrating none.

I cant follow or support a movement that wants to disadvantage and hurt me economically , the earth is a closed system of resources and economy ie a zero sum game , feminists want to take from men so can have more superiority