Who is Feminism For?
Everybody. Feminism is for everybody.
Even men? Doesn’t the patriarchy benefit them?
Yes, and also yes. The patriarchy benefits men, but at a cost. Let’s get into it.
Firstly, let’s talk about what feminism actually is. Merriam Webster defines feminism as “belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests.” The movement first became widely active during the Women’s Suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This era is known as the first wave of feminism, although the earliest feminist text was written in 1792 by Mary Wollstonecraft (whose daughter, Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein and gave us the genre of science fiction). The suffrage movement, of course, arose when women demanded to be given the right to vote. So it arose out of a need for women to gain equality with men and was thus called feminism.
But as time went on and the conversation shifted and evolved, it became clear that there were many intricate facets to what constitutes “equity” and it was much more of a tangled web of marginalizations, all interconnected and related. When women were granted suffrage, it really only applied to white women. In 1920, Indigenous Americans were not allowed to become citizens, so Indigenous women did not have the right to vote. “With the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, American-born Native women gained citizenship. But until as late as 1962, individual states still prevented them from voting on contrived grounds, such as literacy tests, poll taxes and claims that residence on a reservation meant one wasn’t also a resident of that state” (This is not limited to Indigenous Americans, as Asians, and Black women still struggled for many decades to gain this right. Check this source for more info). Because some women are Indigenous, feminism must be aware of Indigenous issues and it must fight for them or it risks marginalizing the people it is supposed to be fighting for.
Today feminists are aware that feminism covers any topic that touches women from equal pay to environmental issues to incarceration and the prison system and on and on.
It might be reasonable to say that feminism is simply the antithesis to patriarchy.
So we’ve seen now how feminism and women’s issues are inherently complex and interrelated, but how do men benefit from feminism?
It’s probably clearer to talk about how men are harmed by the patriarchy. In order to maintain power, oppressive structures hold rigid guidelines for who does and does not benefit. In terms of patriarchy, one particular brand of masculinity is acceptable: that of a cisgender, heterosexual, middle class, white male who is physically healthy. He may not suffer from mental illness unless it is expressed in violence or anger, in which case, he has just “made a mistake.” According to the CDC, “Males make up 49% of the population but nearly 80% of suicides.” Being denied access to both emotions themselves and to therapy which can help us learn how to understand and manage our emotions leaves them with few options and one can only suppress and internalize one’s bullshit for so long.
This is an extremely oversimplified explanation, but I mean to give you a starting point from which to learn more (on your own, or here as we inevitably delve into these issues in the future). There is, of course, many more facets to this, many more silk strings connecting the various webs of our complexly toxic culture. When you follow one string, you will find new rabbit holes lead you to new rabbit holes and on and on.
Look. I know people say you’re not supposed to mix metaphors, but that’s my writing style, okay?
But any hint of femininity, even the slightest, and men begin to lose their benefits that the patriarchy bestows upon them. The same is true of ethnicities that are not white, of course, or of class status, or physical ability, or physical appearance. The patriarchy is only here for assimilation and conformity. Period.
For the men who do manage to fit into the patriarchy, they must bend themselves to fit into its narrow requirements. Any success comes at the cost of self.
Feminism is for everyone. Men must consider themselves feminists not only to help protect those are are further marginalized such as women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and anyone who is not white or, at minimum, middle class, but also because they need it.
It’s still important to remember that men are absolutely not the primary beneficiaries of feminism. Nor am I saying that men should become involved in feminism only because it benefits them - we should become involved in social justice issues because it’s the right thing to do, period. What I am trying to show is how ridiculous it is to consider feminism as a fight that pertains only to women because the patriarchy harms all of us. The mere fact that some men avoid feminism simply because they are men is proof that we still need feminism.
