I Really DO Think Of The Menz!

Honest I do. Who could get away with not thinking about the menz? They're kinda all over the place. They kinda won't let us not think about them.

There is this prominent idea in pop culture of the man hating feminist. I can't, in good conscience, deny the possibility of this person's existence (and I can't babysit anymore), but none of the feminists that I know or have met and almost none of the feminists I've ever even heard of have held this extreme stance.



I also don't believe that men can't be feminists. I think that without men, feminism wouldn't exist. I mostly mean that in a bad way - because if it weren't for the patriarchy and the institutionalized way that men have taken power from us and given it to themselves, we wouldn't NEED feminism - but I also think that without getting men on track with the feminist movement, we won't really be able to make the kind of progress that we want and need. Because we are without power, we need some of the power to be on our side to make true headway.

I had an encounter with a man recently, who got all huffy when the conversation turned to feminism and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Boyfriend (who is an awesome feminist cisguy) made a comment about not having seen the book as being a realistic account of how women might view the contemporary attacks on our reproductive rights, and I replied "that is because you are a man". I think the idea that a man might not understand a women's issue because he does not live the experience is not all that outrageous. This other man (not Boyfriend) was clearly rankled by what he saw as an exclusion, that he later just spat at me "I'm a feminist. I mean, I'm a feminist, so just because I'm a man doesn't mean you can exclude me from the conversation". I was somewhat bewildered in the face of that particular mansplanation, and replied that I believe he is a feminist, if he believes in equality between men and women. I didn't voice the "but you don't have to worry about abortion or repro rights, so you might not understand how women feel about that, which is what I meant by 'that is because you are a man' in this case", because I don't really feel like he was in the mood to listen (or has ever been/will ever be in the mood to listen to me on this issue). We then either changed the subject or he left the room. Both happened, but I can't remember which happened first.

In truth, I think that if you can't bear the idea that the conversation might turn away from MANNESS and MAN ISSUES and WHERE MEN FIT and PENISES for one meager second, then you are probably a pretty shitty feminist if you are one at all.