On Thursday, September 3rd, I joined in and listened to the two hour long Men & Feminism panel being hosted by the UQU Women's Collective for their Feminist Fortnight event. It was a very interesting night and I wanted to share my thoughts and the things that I picked up from that evening with people who may not have been able to attend. There were four panelists: Dr Jonathan Crowe, Associate Professor at the School of Law at UQ Thomas Parer, Secretary of UQ Sexual Health Action Group (SHAG), Engagement Director of UQ United Nations Student Association Mitch Robson, who I think was a member of UQU and mentioned helping people find work and also being a counsellor Tasman Bain, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of Meri Toksave, involved in heaps of other things and likes potatoes And the on-task moderator: Dr Amy Dobson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies I'm going to break up what was discussed into three main themes: Can men call themselves feminists? What feminist actions can men take? How does the construction of gender negatively effect men? Can men call themselves feminists? A large portion of the discussion on Thursday night was devoted to this topic. It seemed that the panelists were not comfortable with taking up the feminist label due to not feeling that it was their fight. They instead used the labels "pro-feminist" and "feminist ally". Their problems with self-identifying as feminists are as follows:
I can understand all of these issues with calling oneself a feminist. I refused to call myself a feminist for a long time because I felt I didn't know enough, academically. Then I realised that there are people out there who don't have access to academic works on feminism - was I going to say that they didn't know enough? I'm constantly unlearning many negative behaviours to do with racism, sexism, biphobia, ableism and more. I'll never be perfect but I'm going to try. I also understand why some women have asked that men not call themselves feminists. I believe that this is due to the fact that they see feminism as largely a fight against patriarchal institutions and power structures which largely effect women. I can also understand that they are worried that men will take over the space (and this has happened before). I like that men are listening to women who voice these concerns. For me personally, I don't have a problem with men calling themselves feminists. The feminist movement has many problematic feminist women who are racist, trans-exclusionary, classist, ableist and more. And when people say or do terrible things, the rest of the movement (rightfully) points it out, shows why they are wrong, or write big blog posts about how this is not 'real feminism'. I'm sure that there are even non-binary, genderqueer or other gendered people who are also feminists who are not that great. Humans aren't perfect. I'm not a woman. I was socialised as one and people assume I'm one all the time. I don't think that just because I'm not a woman does not mean that I can't be involved in dismantling ideas and power structures that harm people of all genders. I want to do away with the idea that there are (1) only two genders, (2) these genders are linked to genitalia, (3) that there are significant differences in genders (e.g. men/blue/strong; women/pink/weak). Johnathan mentioned that he couldn't be a feminist because he wasn't a woman; he'd never been sexually assaulted, r*ped, had a period etc. The moderator, Amy, pointed out that the panelists were still tying feminism to a sexed/gendered body. Someone in the audience pointed out that not all women have these experiences; that there is not catalytic event that 'causes' women to become feminists. Another person in the audience pointed out that because she was raised as a woman, a girl, she was always thinking about gender and how it would be nice to be 'equal' with men. Yet another audience member pointed out that to them, feminism was not a women's problem, it was a societal issue. I was heartened to hear other audience members say that they wanted men to take up the feminist banner; that it was not a job that women can/should carry out themselves. The audience members mainly seemed to want men to call themselves feminists to make feminism more seen, more accessible, more talked about. There were male audience members who even said that they called themselves feminists. That made my night. Now we just need you all to start preaching to your mates! Ultimately, there has been a lot of debate about this and I think there will continue to be, especially because people have such a large range of ideas of what feminism actually is. If you would like to read some other articles about this question, let me direct your clicky pointer arrow: Can Men Be Feminists? on Everyday Feminist Feminism is for everybody by bell hooks (.pdf) What feminist actions can men take? The men on the panel talked about the ways in which they confront sexism and try to use their privilege in constructive ways. For Mitch, this involved unlearning previously sexist behaviours, calling out his mates when they were being sexist and rethinking how he approaches women. He had noticed that women on their resumes were underselling themselves quite a bit and he tries to help rectify that. He said that he is still new to feminism and that he has a lot of learning to do. I look forward to him being an awesome feminist/feminist ally. Jonathan used his position in academia to try and make space for women and the discussion of women specific problems. He identified that, even in a class with 2/3 people being women, there were still more men doing the talking, and led a class discussion on this. He tries actively to get feminism put on the curriculum at UQ, which I thought was awesome - I hadn't realised that UQ didn't have a gender/feminist course. Thomas mentioned that gay cis men have a tendency to feel that because they're gay, they already know about oppression and therefore have already got a handle on feminism. He said that some gay men also feel like they are fine to touch womens bodies because, hey, they're not attracted to women. Thomas works actively to call people out/in about their actions when he sees them doing something wrong. Tasman felt that men need to actively challenge gender roles in their everyday lives and to be critical of the media that they are consuming and how it portrays women and other genders (if it does at all). My favourite bit of advice from Tasman was, of course, check your bookshelf (check out my feminism/gender shelf on goodreads for some places to start). Personally, I think that men have a lot of responsibility to take up the slack and confront sexism. It's not always safe to do so, but where and when it is, I think it's appropriate and necessary to confront it, make space for other genders and also challenge the idea of gender roles. How does the construction of gender negatively effect men? This topic didn't get much of a discussion but it did cover quite a lot of the main issues in the amount of time that was available. The main points that were raised were that rigid ideas about gender and masculinity (especially in Australia):
Tasman talked about how toxic masculinity is tied into male eating disorders, mental health problems, fear of getting checked for prostate cancer, suicide rates, and more. Jonathan was thankful that feminism had helped men by opening up the space for them to talk about gender roles. This is part of the reason why I think feminism is something that all genders can and should be involved in (if they wish to take on that label). Feminism helps all of us to create a better society. For information on toxic & hegemonic masculinity, click away at the links below: Masculinity Is Bad For Men: Have We Raised The Boys All Wrong? The Glorification of Masculinity in the Queer Dating Scene Is Totally a Thing – But No One Seems to Want to Talk About It Hegemonic Masculinity But wait, there's more! There are a lot more events coming for Feminist Fortnight, and I'm really hoping I can make it to some more of them. I miss these kinds of discussions now that I'm no longer a student. I hope that you enjoyed reading my write up about this night! Some of the topics discussed here can be pretty heavy. If you need someone to talk to, please call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Leave a Reply. |
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