activism

Why men should stop calling themselves feminists

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When Emma Watson posted a tribute to the late Alan Rickman by highlighting one of his quotes about feminism, she faced a swift backlash for what some people idiots claimed was a gratuitous promotion of feminism (because promoting feminism is a bad thing and famous people are never quoted in memoriam?).

It’s always good overall, I think, when men can say the word feminism without looking like they’ve just smelled something funky. Although it’s helpful that not all men (or women) think it’s a dirty word, not speaking derisively about the movement for women’s liberation is a basic minimum of decency. If the bar has been set so low that men are lavished with praise for verbally recognizing that women are human beings, this is a solid argument for sustaining the topic in public discourse, to be sure.

The question is: who should shape and own that discourse? Lately there have been numerous instances in which men – especially white men of means – take up the mantle of feminist and instruct other men to do the same. While some women don’t have a problem with this I think it’s worth exploring why some women do because talking about feminism, whether it’s being done by women or men, is not a gender-neutral practice.

The words, ideas, and actions of men carry more weight in society. Females and males aren’t just individuals but also members of social classes which are defined by specific criteria: who they’re perceived to be, how they’re expected to behave, and how they relate to each other. Men hold certain things in common, with some variation thrown in the mix such as nationality, ethnicity, economic class, and sexual orientation. The same goes for women. The result is a complex web of social groups, some of which are organized according to hierarchies i.e. structures of power. The internal commonalities that differentiate males and females from each other are one such example. Of all the topics imaginable, sexism is the subject for which sex-based inequality matters the most. When men and women talk about feminism they’re doing so from privileged and underprivileged positions respectively.

As well-meaning as all of this is, it presents some significant problems. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that men need to be a big part of the conversation, I cringe. Men should critique the system of gender (masculinity and femininity) and talk about what they can do to dismantle it. Most importantly, they should elevate the voices of women, especially marginalized women such as women of colour, indigenous women, immigrant women, poor and working class women, lesbians, disabled women, etc. – bearing in mind that many women belong to more than one of these groups. Organizations like A Call To Men UK do a great job of advocating for the well-being of women and the reason for this is that they take responsibility and they listen to us. Men acting as the face and voice of feminism and taking up space in the movement is actually the last thing that feminism needs. There are loads of intelligent, charismatic women who can (and do) discuss feminism more articulately, more accurately, and with more credibility than men ever can. Why should they have a platform to speak our truths?

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I believe that men should never identify as feminists – and certainly not any time they feel like it as Trudeau suggests. A man, especially one who enjoys multiple levels of privilege, dictating who can or should adopt this title and when smacks of hubris and paternalism. The benefactors of an oppressive system have no business setting the language and parameters of the activism that seeks to destroy that system. The conflict of interest here is obvious to anyone willing to see it.

I recently had a conversation with a friend of a friend who, as soon as he found out I’m a feminist, was eager to tell me that he’s a feminist too. I thought, ‘Oh no. Here we go again’. I took a deep breath and told him that a lot of women aren’t comfortable with men adopting the label of feminist. Without a moment’s hesitation, he dismissed me. “That’s not my problem,” he said.

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It’s always deeply disappointing when men who assume the good guy status ultimately prove themselves to be classic mansplainers. It’s become such a cliché.

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Ilana and Abbi in Broad City

Isn’t it convenient that there are two tranches of feminism that men can pick and choose from as though they’re deciding which ice cream tastes better and the one that’s most desirable to them happens to be the one that least challenges their privilege? This serves the purpose of creating a subclass of feminists who are deemed deserving of abuse and allows men to avoid questioning themselves while appearing virtuous. They can rest easy because they’ve been accepted by the good feminists. The real feminists.

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There’s something mildly relieving about the few times guys manage to say something about sexism or feminism that isn’t misguided, stupid, or arrogant. (Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the Ryan Gosling memes because you’ve probably seen a lifetime’s worth and then some.)

It’s not wrong for public figures to say that it’s important to demand a shift in attitudes as Trudeau has said, but I have a feeling he means something different when he says this than when I do. I know I’m not alone in feeling that we’re far from done and radical change can’t come soon enough. We’re expected to be satisfied with minor advancements and I’m sorry (not sorry) but women have only ever made progress when we’ve fought for it. It doesn’t make sense to low-ball in what is essentially treated as a negotiation of human rights.

It’s not as though women have been sitting around at Stitch ‘n Bitch waiting for politicians to give them the green light. Women have been practicing feminism since well before male sympathizers were born. Women are the ones with the most at stake and we also happen to be the experts. So shouldn’t the experts be educating the public on how to move forward? If gender parity really is a priority in his administration, the best way for Trudeau to demonstrate that is to step aside and let women speak, and not just about feminism but every other issue too because we are people, after all, and we have a lot of smart things to say about every topic under the sun. The only way for us to change the fact that men’s words carry more weight is to take some of it and place it on the other side of the scale.

The truth is, very few men know what they’re talking about. Time and time again we see men insisting that they’re feminists and that they know what feminism is and how we should go about it, only to end up stepping in it. Then they track that garbage all over the place without even realizing it. When do we say, enough?

We can pluck examples from a wide variety of men with the same predictable outcome. The most ridiculous case that comes to mind is when porn actor and serial abuser James Deen was lauded as a feminist and “feminist” publications had to backtrack when his misogyny became too embarassingly obvious to rationalize.

A lot of people laughed when Pope Francis said, “forgive me if I’m a bit feminist” and then went on to say, in the way that condescending men are wont to, that women are just so fantastic because they do the care work while men do all the talking. But are other spiritual leaders much different? For instance, what about the Dalai Lama, who proudly wears the feminist label?

It didn’t take long for him to screw up. Just one year later self-identified Buddhist feminists went into damage control after the leader made an unequivocally sexist comment. Oops! When asked whether he supported the idea that the next Lama could be a woman, he enthusiastically said yes (watch at 4:52) but he followed this up with two assertions. The first was that women are biologically wired to be more affectionate and compassionate than men – that familiar stereotype that’s been used for centuries to force support roles on women and deny them other forms of employment. The second was that this woman would have to be very attractive or else she wouldn’t be of much use. Visibly shocked by this, the interviewer asked him if he was joking and he confirmed that he wasn’t. He clearly wasn’t. But even if he had been joking, which many Buddhists insisted was the case regardless of appearances, sexist jokes aren’t funny (how many times do we have to say this??) and they definitely aren’t feminist.

The term ‘male feminist’ exists because females are the default feminists. We’re the default feminists because feminism is a political movement that organizes for the liberation of females from male domination. If I’m being brutally honest? Very few men are interested in destroying this system and those who say they are almost always get in the way. The biggest hindrance to progress is the fact that any given man is far more likely to perpetuate sexism than to challenge it. Women participate in this system as well as a result of our own social conditioning, but with one key difference: relatively speaking, men have power and women do not. The potential for men to divide, derail, and sabotage feminism through their mere presence is enormous.

From this angle, members of the oppressor class referring to themselves as the liberators of the people they oppress is itself an act of domination, whether intentional or not. It’s not for men to decide what or who is feminist. It’s disrespectful to feminists who work hard, take risks and make sacrifices. They shouldn’t have to share the well-earned badge of feminist with people who not only hold power over them but will never understand what it means to be a woman in a culture that hates females. If a man insists on calling himself a feminist despite all of this, he is anything but; that it’s a matter of respecting women’s boundaries should be enough for him to back off. Feminism belongs to women, as do the words we use to signal our support for the struggle.

There are a lot of things men can do to help women, some more effective than others. As Helen Lewis explains, whereas men often want to be part of the feminist conversation – as many believe is their right – the most valuable contribution men can make to feminism is to take on the burdens that have for so long been the responsibility of women. It’s not glamorous or fun but that’s not the point anyway.

Apparently this needs to be said: men are not entitled to feminist spaces, nor do feminists have any obligation to listen to what men have to say about the women’s liberation movement. It’s great when they reject masculinity but if they’re just performing a different stereotype, or they think their gender divergence means they’re not really men, then gender roles are left intact. When it comes to men and gender, true nonconformity means abandoning one’s allegiance to masculinity along with any notion that one’s sex is correlated with one’s personality.

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Being an ally to social causes shouldn’t be about personal identity and it shouldn’t matter whether you’ve taken on a particular status because having a shiny happy image doesn’t help anyone but you.

Whizdumb

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Don’t let them fool ya
Or even try to school ya
We’ve got a mind of our own
So go to hell if what you’re thinking is not right
– Bob Marley

It’s interesting that the words ‘whiz’ and ‘wisdom’ sound so similar. Both terms refer to intelligence of some kind. We tend to respect people who are smart, but how we judge what makes a person smart is very subjective. There is, however, a significant difference between intelligence as defined by the ability to process complex information as opposed to intelligence as defined by the knowledge and wisdom inherent in all human beings. I believe our society has forgotten the importance of the latter.

It’s very easy to become overwhelmed by the problems of the world (whatever we deem them to be) and of course by our own challenges and limitations. It’s often remarked that the media bombards us with negativity. Despite this, people still aren’t generally inclined to believe that there is a compensating amount of wonderful things happening in the world or enough people doing amazing things every day. This isn’t some accidental skewing of the public consciousness. Whatever negativity we absorb, we reflect back out to the world. And in so doing, we further convince ourselves and each other that we’re justified in our fear and confusion and most importantly in our sense of powerlessness. The constant narrative is that there’s all this horrible stuff going on and we can’t do anything about it – and that’s where the story ends. But this does not reflect reality. I’m glad I reluctantly jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. On that site alone, I’ve stumbled upon countless organizations – public and private, local and international as well as people of all statuses and backgrounds. I knew there were a lot of organizations out there who are working hard to create positive change. But wow. It really reinforced for me that we should never be swayed by those who are apathetic, pessimistic or inactive because they are not the majority. I listen to people like Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, Raj Patel, Michael Ruppert and Joe Rogan and it becomes clear that there are a lot of smart people on this planet who have hope. And I mean the right kind of smart… and the right kind of hope. Because these aren’t a bunch of utopian dreamers. They’re academics, martial artists, economists and physicists who also happen to be activists, comedians, parents, farmers and people just like you and I who see the point in questioning what we’ve come to accept as truth. It’s not their accreditations or education that make them smart. It’s the fact that they use their own intuition and reasoning to live more conscious lives. That is wisdom.

Information is crucial. But what gives it meaning and usefulness is wisdom, which transcends ethnicity, education, religion, class, time, etc. Wisdom can’t be copyrighted. It’s endemic to a collective human experience which has grown from everything and everyone that precedes it. We see the proof of this in the common recurring themes and symbolism expressed through various independent civilizations throughout history. While our ingenuity has allowed us to create amazing things, we have unwittingly ascribed a superiority to this intelligence as compared to a wisdom that teaches us to live consciously, always question, embrace change, trust ourselves and honour our connection to everything.

It may seem that the problems we’re facing on a global scale are insurmountable and that we’d be foolish and naive to believe that the solution (which obviously must be profound and earth-shattering) is actually incredibly simple. But it is, because it requires us to do only what is within our power: to be the change we wish to see in the world. Forget about everything else. Take Gandhi, for example – originally a lawyer who one day embraced a transcendental wisdom that altered the course of history. Is it really so impossible, then, that any one of us can be agents of change? Don Miguel Ruiz, a Toltec master and author, is the ultimate example of a human being who embodies a wisdom that is at the same time self-evident, simple and mind-blowing:

Take me to your leader

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I’ve had a bit of time to float back up from my post-election depression and re-assess whether things are as bad as they seem. For all you non-Canadians, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about other stuff going on in the world. But at some point in the next few years, I have a feeling you’re going to hear increasingly more about us Northern folk. And I’m not confident that it will be positive news.

Positive or negative – these are pretty interesting times. So the morning after a thoroughly riveting federal election, I was horrified to see that the most popularly read article on Toronto’s CityNews was ‘In Photos: The Royal Wedding’. It was the first time I heard myself say that war should win over love. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that Canadians – especially those in the Greater Toronto Area, whose votes really swayed the results – weren’t glued to the election news. Despite an election that generated a huge amount of buzz on social networking sites and in the public sphere, only 61% of Canadians voted. This figure was only slightly higher than the previous voter turnout. What the hell, Canada? What happened? Were we left blind by the glitz and glam of the marriage of the monarchists or too excited about (or perhaps terrified by the ramifications of) Osama Bin Laden’s execution? I suspect Canadians would have voted (or not, rather) the same way had it been just a regular day.

I’m still pissed off. I hate seeing Stephen Harper contort those cold, reptilian lips into what barely qualifies as a smile. But that’s not what pisses me off. I’m pissed off at Canadians. I’m pissed off at the Liberals who handed the Conservatives a majority government by failing to realize that if they’d sucked it up and voted strategically for the New Democrats (as NDP supporters have been forced to do for them so many times), the Tories may not have been able to manipulate certain ridings (very cleverly, I’ll admit) to their advantage. And I hope that the people who woke up at 4am to watch the royal wedding didn’t vote. Firstly, because I wholeheartedly believe that there’s something wrong with people who care that much about something that has zero impact on their lives. And secondly, because if I find out that any individual was willing to sacrifice their precious sleep for the British royals but couldn’t be bothered to vote in what was arguably the most exciting federal election in Canadian history, I will get mad. Again. And I really just want to go back to being my old chipper self.

I was, on the other hand, impressed at the amount of political commentary from many illustrious thinkers such as Michael Moore, Judy Rebick and Naomi Klein. Much like during the G20 summit, I found Twitter to be a valuable source of news, info and opinion by concerned citizens, media outlets and NGOs. It’s encouraging to see so many people using social networks as a legitimate tool for social change. Social networking is becoming an increasingly powerful force precisely because we’re deciding how we use it, and in so doing, we find new opportunities for not only expressing ourselves but also connecting with each other in a way that even casting a ballot can’t achieve.

People talk about voter apathy. I’d like to think that so many people didn’t vote simply because they’ve lost faith in the process. They have a point when 39.7% of the popular vote produces 54.2% of the seats. Further to that, the Tories won a majority despite the fact that the only other party with any real clout snatched only 9% less of the popular vote. “WTF?!?” was a ubiquitous reaction. So is it really the case that a large faction of the population doesn’t care? Or are they too insulated, brainwashed, selfish, etc. to consider the fundamental nature of right-wing policy? And not just in Canada but throughout the world, in the form of alliances such as NAFTA, the WTO, G8, G20, etc.?

North America is now comprised of a citizenry that has little hope in its governments’ will to represent its needs and even less faith in its own ability to subvert a system that has become so corrupt and inaccessible that change seems impossible. Add to that a public which has been beaten into a stupor, sensitized to fabricated threats and desensitized to what should cause outrage. I suspect our problem isn’t so much that our convictions are wrong or that we lack conviction in the first place. It seems to me that the media machine has simply been very successful at perpetuating confusion, fear and distraction. So I refuse to believe that in this election particularly, Canadians expressed a belief that gutting funding for social services and programs and increasing corporate wealth is going to trickle down into some sort of windfall for the little people. We couldn’t possibly be that dumb. Could we? The fact that we’ve elected a government that among many other things scrapped the access to information database in order to decrease its transparency suggests otherwise. I’m worried because not only will we have a government in power for the next 4 years (minimum) that’s going to do shit like this and worse – but if our lack of basic civic participation is any indication, we’re going to let them do it.

One important fact that this election made obvious is that our first-past-the-post electoral system sucks. Proportional representation is the way to go, although it sounds like people have as much faith in that changing as Harper showing up at the House of Commons in a clown suit – which would probably land me in a straight jacket, since I have a morbid fear of clowns.

Where do we go from here, Canada? I suggest we start by asking what the hell is so bad about a party that stands for reducing poverty and promoting gender/sexual equality, environmental protection, public healthcare and education, Aboriginal rights, workers’ rights and a foreign policy focused on peacekeeping and humanitarian aid.

How we as a country fund all of this is another issue. But is it a question of fiscal management (which the Right likes to say the Left is so terrible at) or is it a question of whether a socially just and balanced society is economically sustainable? Herein lies the crux. If you’re saying that left-wing parties are bad at cutting waste and fundraising, is that endemic to their policy or just a reflection of whichever leadership governs that party at any given point in time? Are people suggesting that right-wing parties are only comprised of accountants and MBAs, or that there’s something about them specifically that makes them better equipped to manage our tax dollars (but Lefties are just a bunch of pot-smoking hippies)? Or is the assumption that post-industrial democratic societies actually can’t afford to ensure that all of its people are employed, in good health and that their rights as well as those of the environment are respected? In which case, why don’t we all just quit our jobs, party all day and night, and watch what happens when the haves and have-nots face off? You don’t hear people talking in the mainstream media about capitalism much anymore – it’s like everyone has been lulled into submission. People just take it for granted that it’s the only economic option, the only system that will ensure ‘prosperity’, even though we have never had more wealthy people on this planet while poverty increases at an astonishing rate. At what point do we wake up and realize that what so-called developed nations have been doing these past decades is not working? And if the Left doesn’t hold the solution to our problems, then why is it that the problems we’re experiencing today happened with the moderates and Rightists at the helm, but they’re the ones we keep electing in our hopes of overcoming poverty and war? We need to question our basic assumptions about what kind of society we want, what truly is ‘possible’ and who is responsible for effecting that change. Hint: it’s us.

With the election over, hopefully Canadians won’t just watch the shit hit the fan and point fingers at each other because we have the biggest decision of all to make over the next few years. The fact that we’ve elected the NDP as the official opposition clearly confirms that Canadians want change. But as soon as the Liberals appoint a strong leader, we’ll be right back to their middle-of-the-road approach, which keeps us breathing but never gives us enough oxygen to rise above our despair. So are we ready for change? I mean, real change? The vast majority of human beings don’t proactively elect to change. We change when we’re forced to. We’ll tolerate all kinds of unbearable situations – bad jobs, unhealthy relationships, corrupt governments – before we face our fear of change and uncertainty. Will the NDP dash what may be their last chance at proving that they can form a viable government? Or will they show us that there really is a legitimate alternative to the status quo?

I leave you with a quote and a video:

“It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.”

– Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows